


Little Broken Machine

by Uncanny_Valley_Girl



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Prequel Trilogy
Genre: Anakin Skywalker Needs a Hug, Angst, Astromech Droids (Star Wars), Depressive Thoughts, Droid Feels (Star Wars), Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Fluff, Fluff and Angst, Fluff and Humor, Fluff and Hurt/Comfort, Gen, Master & Padawan Relationship(s), Obi-Wan Kenobi Needs a Hug, POV Anakin Skywalker, Slice of Life, Young Anakin Skywalker
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-29
Updated: 2020-12-06
Packaged: 2021-03-10 03:46:51
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 8
Words: 23,131
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27767743
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Uncanny_Valley_Girl/pseuds/Uncanny_Valley_Girl
Summary: Eleven-year-old Anakin Skywalker is given an astrodroid with faulty programming. Maybe they're both a little broken. Maybe they can fix each other.
Relationships: Anakin Skywalker & Original Character(s), Obi-Wan Kenobi & Anakin Skywalker
Comments: 74
Kudos: 105
Collections: November High Council Bounty





	1. Chapter 1

“It’s broken?” Anakin Skywalker wrinkled up his nose, staring at the little green astrodroid facing him in the sitting room of his master’s quarters.

“No, she’s not broken,” his master answered. “She functions just fine most of the time. She just has a few glitches in her programming is all. She’s special.”

Obi-Wan gave Anakin a patient look from his pale eyes, the kind of virtuous Jedi look he did well without trying. Even after knowing him for a year and a half, Anakin still wasn’t sure whether his eyes were blue or green or gray. But they were full of Jedi virtue, that much was certain. He’d grown his reddish hair out a little since he’d passed his trials and lost his waist-length Padawan braid, but he still wore the exact same white robes and brown boots he’d worn when Anakin first met him. The astrodroid stood just behind him, as though hugging the back of his skinny legs offered her some kind of protection.

“I don’t want a broken droid,” Anakin stated. “Or… special, or whatever it is.”

“Give her a chance, at least. She can keep you company in your room.” Obi-Wan nudged the droid forward, coaxing it like he did when he charmed animals. It rocked slightly on its treads and swiveled its head, its camera eye facing away from Anakin.

“It won’t even look at me,” Anakin said. “You should just take it back.”

Obi-Wan let out a short breath. His presence got the exasperated edge that it often took on when they talked. It took a lot for anyone else to reach the end of his patience, it seemed like, but Anakin reached it pretty often. “Master Yoda suggested that I get you this droid,” he said. “So you’re getting this droid. You can fix it. You’re good at that, right? Fixing things?” His voice took on a plaintive tone.

Anakin rolled his eyes. “Yeah,” he said.

“Good. Then fix her.” Obi-Wan nudged the droid again, physically pushing its back this time until it had no choice but to roll toward him. “I think you’re just the person she needs.”

‘He didn’t mean to.’ That was always what Obi-Wan said whenever Anakin broke something or got into a fight and injured a classmate. He did mean to though, usually, and he was pretty sure Obi-Wan knew it. Afterwards, when they were alone, he got asked questions like, ‘where is this anger coming from?’ or ‘what were you thinking?’ or one time, in desperation, ‘why are you so destructive?’

That one had stung for a long time after, and he never did think up an answer that was any good. He could never think up an answer when Obi-Wan told him he didn’t understand either, when he asked where his anger was coming from and said that he’d never been like this before. He _had_ been like this before. He’d always been the way he was now. It was the people around him that were different. Here, the other Padawans talked about him when they thought he wasn’t listening. They gave him looks like they were afraid of him, like they thought he was some unnatural thing that might kill them. Some of the masters looked at him the same way. If people had acted like that back on Tatooine, he would have broken things and gotten into fights then too. ‘He didn’t mean to,’ Obi-Wan always defended him. Like he didn’t know how to control his powers, like that was the reason he was destructive. But that wasn’t it. He could control them, better even than the much older Padawans could. He’d mastered every technique Obi-Wan had shown him, quickly and easily. He just didn’t want to control his powers when he got angry. He’d always used whatever he could get his hands on to stick up for himself. Afterwards, he usually regretted doing whatever he’d done. He regretted it when he saw the confused, disappointed look in Obi-Wan’s eyes, and when he realized that he had actually wanted to hurt someone or to wreck something, even if it was only for a second. But then, late at night as he lay awake in his bed, he’d remember what they’d said or how they’d made him feel, and the regret would be gone.

Today, though, he knew it wouldn’t go away any time soon. Seeing his training saber in his room had made him do it this time. Earlier that day, he’d trained against Obi-Wan, and he’d come into the training room practically bouncing off the walls, dying to show him the moves he’d been practicing. But Obi-Wan had scolded him, barely a few seconds into the fight. Told him to be mindful, that he was being arrogant and treating the Force like a toy. He could barely put in the effort to finish the rest of the fight. When he came back to his room, he’d tossed his training saber on the shelf and walked away without looking at it. And now, seeing it sitting there next to the machine parts he’d saved and the model starfighter Obi-Wan had given him on his eleventh birthday, he’d burned inside all over again.

_When I’m serious, he’s suspicious of me,_ he’d thought. _When I’m angry, I’m going to the dark side. When I’m quiet, he just ignores me. When I’m happy, that’s wrong too. I can’t win. Nothing I do will ever be right._

He’d picked up his datapad and thrown it at the shelf, on purpose. For a split second, it had felt like the best thing in all the worlds. And now, the shelf was hanging from one mount, and the little starfighter that Obi-Wan had given him for his birthday – one of the best things he’d ever owned – was on the floor in three jagged pieces.

He knelt and lifted the pieces gently in his hands. His eyes welled up as he shook his head. “I didn’t mean to,” he said quietly, even though it wasn’t true.

The broken droid’s name was R2-M9. It was printed on the back of her charging port, like her previous owner hadn’t wanted to forget it. Anakin noticed that, not for the first time, as he went to plug her in for the night. It had been a week since Obi-Wan brought her home. He hadn’t plugged her in any of the other nights, or kept tabs on her at all, really. She never tried to leave, except to run to Obi-Wan’s room. She distress-signaled Obi-Wan a lot too, when she got spooked. His comm was always blowing up with emergency notifications from her because she got lost in the refresher or saw a person she’d never seen before. When she went to Obi-Wan’s room, he always pushed her back to the Padawans’ quarters. Most of the time, though, she just rolled around the Padawans’ dorms until someone inevitably got irritated at her and hunted Anakin down to yell, ‘Anakin, your droid is in the hall again.’ As though it had been his choice to bring her home. As though he’d wanted any of this. But tonight, Obi-Wan was attending a Council meeting, and he was on his own with nothing better to do. 

“Come on,” he said, beckoning.

R2-M9 rocked side-to-side on her treads and cooed, standing in the hall across from the open door of his room.

“I’m not going to push you like Obi-Wan does,” Anakin said. “Your treads work just fine. You can come on your own.”

She stood right where she was and swiveled her head like she was confused. He turned back to her port. She’d come if she wanted to. Crouching down, he examined the port’s electrical and mechanical components. They were fairly simple. It was still hard to believe such a complicated, almost living thing could run on something so simple as electrical currents switched on and off in just the right ways. He traced the letters of her designation with his fingers. _R2-M9,_ written in green paint that matched her detailing. “Were you part of a team?” he asked.

No response.

He crouched there a while longer, waiting, then straightened up when his legs started to hurt. “Come on,” he said again, a little more impatiently this time.

She let out a confused little warble, as though she’d never seen a port before in her life and had no idea what he expected of her.

He sighed. “Okay, fine,” he said irritably, and crossed the room into the hall. She stood frozen until he was within arm’s reach of her. Then, as soon as he reached out to touch her, she rocked back, screamed, and peeled off into the refreshers as fast as she could roll. He stood there staring after her for a second, his mouth hanging open. Then he shook his head. “You know what, suit yourself,” he said. “I’m going to bed.”

He was in bed reading an adventure holocron when he heard, “Anakin, your droid is in the hall again,” from outside.

“How are you and R2-M9 getting along?” Obi-Wan asked as they walked together down one of the big Temple halls. Anakin had just gotten out of class and Obi-Wan was on his way to a meeting.

“You should know,” Anakin said. “She signals you like a million times a day.” He took quicker steps to keep pace with Obi-Wan, folding his hands into his robe sleeves like the full-grown Jedi Knights did.

“She’s just scared,” Obi-Wan said. “She’s new here. Surely you remember what that was like?”

_Like it ever got any different,_ Anakin thought. He scowled. “I’m not the same as her. She’s broken.”

“If that’s how you want to see it, I can’t stop you,” Obi-Wan said.

For a few seconds, they walked in silence. Then Anakin perked up, suddenly remembering something. “The remote for the network in your apartment isn’t broken anymore, though,” he said.

Obi-Wan’s eyebrows went up. “You fixed it?”

“I told you I could.”

“That you did. Thank you. I’m sure the technicians would thank you for sparing them a repair call too.”

Anakin smirked. “I was even able to link it up with your comm so you can listen to calls on the projector speakers now,” he said. “You can even talk into it, from anywhere in the apartment! That red button at the bottom that didn’t do anything before is the comm button now. I was gonna write ‘comm’ next to it, but there was no room.”

“Wow,” Obi-Wan said. “I’m going to have the most high-tech flat in the whole Temple pretty soon.”

“Yeah!” Anakin said, grinning. “You are.”

It didn’t take long for Anakin to figure out that R2-M9 had a cleaning glitch, in addition to her not-following-instructions glitch and her running-off-to-the-refreshers glitch and her distress-signaling-Obi-Wan glitch. Anakin had seen astrodroids clean before; there was nothing that strange about that on its own. The ones that worked properly ran their cleaning routines to clean up after a repair job on a ship, or to blast away gunk to get to the damaged parts. Some of the Jedi had their droids programmed to clean their whole starfighter themselves, to spare them the trouble of sending it through a wash tunnel.

R2-M9 didn’t even need to be near a ship to run her cleaning routine. When Anakin came home from his classes, he found her scrubbing the walls in the hallway. He woke up in the middle of the night to the sound of her vacuuming her port. Sometimes, the cleaning routine triggered when she was startled by a loud noise or a sudden movement, or by him getting too close to her. Other times, nothing seemed to trigger it at all. He did his best to ignore it for the first few days, but it got harder and harder to ignore. One day about two weeks after Obi-Wan gave her to him, as she vacuumed the wall while he tried to study his history lesson, he’d finally had enough.

“Would you stop cleaning?” he snapped.

She froze, then turned her head slowly toward him, the vacuum hose still poised in her pincer.

“Put that thing away,” he said irritably. “You don’t need it. It’s a wall. It doesn’t need cleaning.”

Emnine turned her head, looked at the vacuum hose then indignantly back at him, and rolled out of the room. He decided he’d take it.

After that, he fell into a pattern of scolding her when she cleaned. At first, it was just because it bothered him. But over the next few days, he noticed that she’d started to put the cleaning attachments away when he scolded her. In fact, she usually didn’t pull the routine again for at least a couple of hours afterwards. He even thought she might be pulling it less often altogether.

“She’s learning the way a person does,” he said out loud when it hit him, standing in the refresher in the middle of tying his tunic. “Or… an animal. She remembers me getting mad when she did it before.” That was unusual for a droid. At least, it was for the kind he’d worked with back on Tatooine. They’d had some capacity to learn, through trial and error. But they didn’t remember emotions.

“Master?” he asked Obi-Wan that night after they finished their bedtime meditation. “Do astrodroids remember feelings?”

Obi-Wan cocked his head. “Remember feelings?” he asked.

“Like, if they do something once and someone gets mad, do they remember not to do it again?”

“Oh, you mean like a positive or negative association. Yes, astrodroids can definitely do that. Some are more responsive than others. But I’ve known astromechs that remembered me years later.”

Anakin sat there looking at his hands, thinking about it, about her. He’d never known a machine could be that way.

“Emnine! No cleaning,” he scolded her the next time he caught her with her scrubber out, making it deliberate this time. She put the scrubber away.

It took him three more tries to get Emnine into her port without her running off. The second time, he gave up when she took off, like he had the first time. But the third time he decided he wasn’t going down so easily. He chased her out into the hall when she bolted, then into the refreshers where a couple of boys were brushing their teeth or drying off from the bath, then into the common room where some older Padawans sat on the sofa playing a holo-game. The others gave him some questioning looks, but ultimately seemed to decide it wasn’t worth the trouble of saying anything. He was thoroughly out of breath when Emnine finally stopped in the hall. When he came close, she didn’t bolt.

“Are you finally ready to go to bed?” he asked her, panting.

She gave her port a longing look through the open door, as though she wanted to go to it but she was too scared, or didn’t know how.

Anakin sighed. “You’re going to make me push you, aren’t you?”

In response, she just did that dumb little head swivel.

He rolled his eyes. “Okay, come on,” he said, and got behind her.

When Obi-Wan pushed her, it was a gentle, graceful Force nudge from above. Anakin wasn’t trained enough at using the Force for that. Or tall enough. He had to lean his shoulder against her back and shove with his full weight, his bare feet sliding on the smooth floor.

“Come on, move, you dumb droid,” he grunted.

She barely budged. He had to push her again for each meter of floor covered.

“You are not… making this… easy for me,” he said between breaths.

At the center of his room, she froze in place again, just a meter or two from her port. He pushed and pushed, with no results.

“Come. On,” he said through gritted teeth.

At last, he felt her unlock. But, he realized too late, it was only to swing her body so far forward between her treads that he fell flat onto his backside.

“You’re a real pain, do you know that?” he said, sitting on the floor.

She just rolled off back to the refreshers.


	2. Chapter 2

Anakin always felt a small thrill inside when Obi-Wan offered to make them dinner at his quarters. That was a fairly new development, just in the past half year or so. For the first seven months of his Jedi training, he’d never even seen inside Obi-Wan’s personal rooms. They met for training sessions in the communal training rooms and meditation chambers, then went their separate ways. But then one day without warning, Obi-Wan had suggested that start doing nightly meditations in his sitting room. Anakin still remembered the first time he’d walked through the door. The sitting room looked exactly the way he’d imagined Obi-Wan’s rooms looking. The cushions on the sofa and on the floor around the table were a spotless almost-white that made Anakin nervous to sit on them, and the table and the shelf on the wall were stained to look like dark brown wood. All the furniture matched perfectly. The only personal items were Master Qui-Gon’s lightsaber, displayed on the shelf; a row of awards from lightsaber tournaments hanging on the wall; a potted plant in the corner; and an assortment of library holocrons scattered on the table, which changed depending on the day but were always something boring.

From that first night on, their meditations together had become a nightly routine. Usually, they were short and uneventful, with a prim, proper, ‘goodnight Anakin,’ afterwards at the door. Some nights, Obi-Wan asked Anakin about his day, or his classes, or the latest machine he was tinkering with. Other nights he didn’t. As the months passed, Anakin started spending time in Obi-Wan’s rooms during the day too, when he could. He never really _asked_ Obi-Wan about spending more time there, but he was good at squeezing into places without asking. A lot of times when he was there, they didn’t talk much, if at all. Obi-Wan didn’t seem to be in a talkative mood often. Once, and only once, he’d gotten going on a story about one of his lightsaber tournaments, and it had been like talking to a completely different person. Like he lit up from the inside out and was suddenly _fun._ Anakin hoped he’d unlock that side of him again, if he waited long enough. So far, he’d had no luck with that. Most days, Obi-Wan barely smiled. He took everything seriously, and Anakin had never seen him do anything just for enjoyment. He seemed to get headaches way more often than most people did. Anakin sometimes wondered if something was bothering him, deep down inside, if that was why he got so many headaches and never smiled. If a person’s heart was hurting, it came out in other ways - that was what Mom used to say. When he got to thinking about that, Anakin always felt a pang of remorse for testing Obi-Wan’s patience so much and for picking so many fights with him. He wished he could help him with whatever was wrong, but he wasn’t sure how to ask. 

Their dinners together had just started a couple of months ago, when Obi-Wan offered to get takeout from a restaurant he liked. Since then, they’d had three takeout dinners, and two that Obi-Wan had made. All of them were what Obi-Wan liked to call “trashy Coruscanti diner food.” Apparently, he had a weakness for it. Tonight, he was making something with rice, dehydrated fried meat and vegetables, and instant packets of powdered broth.

“I’m really a terrible master for getting you started on this artificial rubbish,” he said as he stirred the rice over the heating element. “Qui-Gon said his Master used to invite him to his room for gourmet meals when he was a boy.”

Anakin blew out a laugh, playing a holo-game at the table. “Did Master Qui-Gon only eat healthy food?” he asked.

“Oh, no. He used to go to Dex’s Diner with me all the time,” Obi-Wan said. “He loved all food. Used to say he was so full he’d explode if he ate one more bite, then go back for another helping five seconds later.”

Anakin laughed. Then he turned to face Emnine. Out of the corner of his eye, he’d seen her turning her head in that nervous way she did. Sure enough, the vacuum hose popped out a second later.

“Emnine,” he warned. “No cleaning.”

She turned it on anyway and began running it back and forth across the floor.

“No!” Anakin barked. “No cleaning. No. Cleaning. Put it down.” He pointed at the floor.

Emnine stared at him for a few seconds, then sheepishly let go of the vacuum hose and let it slither back into its hatch.

“Good girl.”

Obi-Wan chuckled, without looking up from his cooking. “I see you’re trying to train her based on negative associations,” he said.

“Huh? Oh, right. Associations.” Anakin shifted his weight on the cushion and looked back at his datapad. His avatar in the game had died while he was scolding Emnine.

“Might I suggest mixing in some positive ones as well?” Obi-Wan said.

Anakin looked up at him, his eyebrows scrunching together.

“Every living creature I’ve known has responded better to positive feedback than negative.” Obi-Wan raised his eyebrows, challenging Anakin to try his technique. “I don’t think a droid will be any different.”

Anakin thought on it for a second. It made sense. Most things Obi-Wan said made sense, as much as it bugged him sometimes. He resolved to do it, just to show Obi-Wan he could, if nothing else. As Obi-Wan finished preparing the food, he hopped up to get some dishes.

“You don’t need to do that,” Obi-Wan said.

“I don’t mind,” Anakin answered, carrying the dishes to the table.

Finding positive associations, as Obi-Wan called them, was harder than Anakin had thought it would be. If he’d been asking Emnine to repair ships like astrodroids were meant to do, he would have praised her when she did it right. But there wasn’t much to praise a droid for when its only job was to follow a Jedi kid around the temple. In the end, he resorted to borrowing a pet training holocron from the library.

_Make sure that your creature associates you with safety and…_ was the first tip in the list. He wasn’t completely sure on the last Basic word, but it looked similar to the word for ‘familiar’ or ‘stable.’ Safety and stability. He could do that. The holocron suggested putting a piece of clothing in the creature’s bed, to make it familiar with its owner’s scent. Droids couldn’t smell, so that idea was out. But they could see. He took a holo picture of himself and had it printed onto a flimsi sheet, which he stuck to the wall next to Emnine’s port. The holocron also said to spend as much time around a new creature as possible, so he made his best attempt at getting Emnine to come in his room with him, or to follow him around. She didn’t take the bait often.

“I just don’t think she likes me,” he said with a sigh, one night in Obi-Wan’s sitting room after yet another failed attempt at getting her to stand in the same room with him.

“What makes you say that?” Obi-Wan didn’t look up from whatever tedious holocron he was reading.

“I’m trying to get her to follow me. But she won’t.”

“Well, why don’t you try following her then?” Obi-Wan offered.

“Follow her?” Anakin laughed. But Obi-Wan didn’t crack a smile. He was serious. “You really think I should follow the droid around.”

“I think it would be effective, yes. Let her know that you’re not going to leave her, no matter what.” The corners of his mouth lifted just slightly. “Let her know she’s stuck with you for good.”

Anakin thought about it. Then he pressed his lips together with newfound resolve and stood up. “Alright, I will,” he said, and took off in search of Emnine.

Following a droid around the temple led to some interesting locations for his daily activities. But he’d determined that he was going to do it until it worked, and he wasn’t about to quit. He studied while sitting on the floor in a training room; practiced his combat stances in the hallway; fell asleep curled up in a corner of the Padawans’ sitting rooms. None of it seemed to help much. Emnine rolled where she wanted to, and she still seemed spooked by him. After three days, he was close to giving up. But he resolved to stick it out just a few days longer, if only because he hated the idea of giving up. Then, finally, on the fifth day, she followed him when he went to get a drink of water during a training session. His heart leapt a little, but he fought the urge to whoop or proclaim his victory. He’d finally got her to make the first, tiny step in the right direction. The last thing he wanted was to make her run for the hills again. 

In the days that followed, she shadowed him more and more often. Soon, she was practically welded to his side. He woke up each morning to see her looking down at him, her front pressed against the side of his bed. When he finished a bath, he’d find her standing outside the refreshers, blocking the door. She even tried to leave the Padawans’ wing with him when he went to his classes.

_She's just doing what Obi-Wan and Master Yoda told her,_ he reminded himself. _She's just finally gotten over her fear of me enough to do what she was sent here to do._ But he just couldn't help it. He liked it when she followed him. 

“Can she come to class with me?” he asked Obi-Wan, after several times of telling her no.

“Ask your instructors,” Obi-Wan said.

As it turned out, all of them agreed, as long as she was willing to sit quietly in a corner during the class. She was more than willing. One afternoon during Force meditation class, the instructor demonstrated how to stand upside-down on one hand while in a trance. The Padawans would try it for themselves next time, she said. Anakin stayed behind after class. He wanted to try it now. The first few times he tried to get up to a handstand, he fell back down, or flipped over and landed on his back. Emnine stood in the corner, watching him with fascination. When he paused to catch his breath, she chirped timidly and rocked forward on her treads.

“Yeah, you can come over here,” he said. “Class is over.” He beckoned to her. “Come on.”

She rolled across the room to join him. As he jumped clumsily into a handstand, she tilted onto one tread, looking confused. This time he finally managed to stay up.

“It’s a meditative pose,” he said, kicking his legs in the air as he tried to steady himself. “It focuses the mind. Or something.” He lifted one hand off the floor and wobbled, the other arm bent. At first, he didn’t feel anything. But after a few seconds, the Force flowed gently through him, stabilizing him. It made him feel like one of those carved, weighted toys they used to sell on Tatooine that balanced on one tiny corner. He bit down on his lip to keep from smiling and straightened his arm, his legs pointing straight up into the air. It was effortless. He could have held it forever. “It’s easy,” he said to Emnine, surprised. “Not sure why the teacher was acting like it would be so hard.” He blinked, his head feeling a little heavy. “Makes me kinda dizzy though.”

Emnine stood there staring at him. Then she straightened up between her treads. As if with sudden purpose, she rolled around to face same direction as him, flipped her body upside down between her treads, and lifted one tread off the floor. It was so sudden and so ridiculous looking that he burst out giggling in spite of himself, almost losing his balance. He forced a serious expression. “Stop, you’re gonna make me fall,” he said.

Emnine turned her head to look at him, still balancing upside-down on one tread. Apparently the movement upset her balance, because she flipped back over abruptly and landed on both treads with a resounding _clunk._ She looked startled.

Anakin cracked up again, and this time there was no getting his focus back. He wobbled, tried to catch himself, but tumbled down anyway, bumping his head on the floor. “Ow,” he said as he sat up, rubbing his head. “You made me do that.” He scowled at Emnine. But he couldn’t hold the scowl for long before he started laughing again. 

“Your teacher said you’ve been doing exceptionally well lately,” Obi-Wan said after one class, when they met up in the temple halls. “‘Impressively well-behaved and mature’ is the exact term she used.” He raised his eyebrows. “Has Emnine been a good influence on you?”

Emnine rolled along happily, less than a meter from Anakin’s side, like always. He glanced at the floor. “Well… she copies me,” he said. “So I don’t want her to see anything bad. You know?”

He jumped when Obi-Wan reached over and ruffled his hair. “I’m proud of you,” he said.

Anakin did his best not to smile, to keep his expression serious and focused. He didn’t quite succeed. _He’s proud of me,_ he thought. He felt like he could float away.

It was only a day later when he got into a fight again. This time, it stung even more than usual, knowing that Obi-Wan had been proud, and that he’d so quickly let him down. Of course, none of that had stopped him in the moment. But it didn’t take long for it to catch up with him. He didn’t want to face Obi-Wan, or to walk into his room with fresh bruises and scrapes and have to explain what he’d done, so he went to the Temple garbage collection vats instead. He had a little worker droid he’d pulled out of the trash that he’d been trying to fix. Working on it would be a good distraction, he hoped. But after an hour or so of tinkering with it, he began to realize that it was far too damaged for even him to fix. Now, all he had to show for his hour of work were beat-up hands and oil stains on his clothes. He stood and kicked the inactive little casing, bubbling over with anger all over again. As he did, Emnine gave him a wary look and rolled backward.

“What?” he said irritably. “I’m not gonna kick you. This one isn’t even awake. Never will be awake. Can’t fix the programming when the whole droid is busted.”

Emnine just stared at him and rolled back a little farther.

He turned away. “Fine, be scared of me.” He grabbed the worker droid casing to take it and throw it back in the vat. “Everyone else is. That’s why they gave you to me, you know. They think I’m defective. That I destroy things for no reason. I was programmed wrong when they got me, and there’s nothing they can do to undo it. Not sure why they thought an astrodroid could do any better.” He paused, halfway between where he’d been working and the trash vat. He’d never said any of what he'd just said out loud before, even though he’d known it was true for a long time. He wasn’t sure why he was saying it out loud now. But it wasn’t as though an astrodroid could understand what he was saying, or repeat it to anyone else. So he kept going. “It’s the truth,” he said, with an edge in his voice. “I do destroy things. I built a whole holoprojector once and then smashed it, just ‘cause I felt like it.” He puffed his chest out a little, trying to look menacing. “It was fun.”

Emnine swiveled her head just a little, looking at him. She didn’t move.

“So, yeah, you can be scared if you want,” Anakin said. “I don’t care. I’m sure you know why you’re here.” 

She just kept looking at him.

He stared right back for a few seconds, then cocked his head, wondering if he was reading her the right way. “They told you what I was like before they sent you home with Obi-Wan, didn’t they?” he pressed.

Emnine’s stare was blank. After a second, she rocked side-to-side on her treads and let out a cheerful little string of beeps, as though she were laughing and hoping she hadn’t been asked a question.

_She doesn’t know why she’s here,_ Anakin realized, surprised. _She didn’t know about me._ Whatever Obi-Wan and Master Yoda had been trying to do, she wasn’t a part of it. _Which means she was scared of me for some other reason._ It also meant she followed him around for a different reason than he’d thought. He looked at her for a long few seconds.

“Well, they should have,” he said at last. “They should’ve told both of us. You don’t just dump a droid on someone without giving them some kind of warning. Or a human, for that matter.” He crossed the rest of the way to the vat, then stopped and faced her again, and took a deep breath. “You’re not busted like this one,” he said. “Just… so you know. Your glitches aren’t all that bad, really. You actually work pretty good.”

Emnine warbled a response, though he wasn’t sure what it meant.

He glanced away from her and up to the edge of the vat, then gave the worker droid casing a little shake. “Uh, look away now if you want to,” he said. “He’s going in.”

She warbled again.

He stood on his toes, swung the droid casing back, and tossed it over the edge. Emnine didn’t so much as flinch. 

The next night, he sat up in his bed, drawing on his datapad. Emnine stood by the side of the bed, shining her light attachment onto his screen. She’d taken up doing that the past few nights, to help him see what he was working on. His datapad glowed, so it didn’t really make much of a difference. But he didn’t tell her that. He erased and adjusted the ruffles on the figure’s dress in his drawing, then erased them again, before setting his stylus down in frustration.

“I can’t remember what her dress looked like,” he said forlornly. “I know it had these… ruffly things.” He made a vague gesture with his hands, moving them down over his torso. “But I don’t remember any more than that.”

Emnine gave him a questioning coo.

“She’s the queen of Naboo,” Anakin answered. “Padme Amidala.” He sighed, staring into space as he pictured her in his mind's eye. “The most beautiful lady in all the universe.”

He thought back to the victory parade on Naboo, to the last time he’d seen her. He could still see the way she’d smiled at him, as clear as anything. Sometimes he saw her in his dreams. He’d even had one dream with her in a wedding dress, and a tall, grown-up version of himself waiting to take her hand. A hopeless feeling welled up inside him when he thought about the fact that his dreams would never come true in real life, about the fact that he’d probably never see her again. He would have given anything to meet just one person at the Temple who was like her.

_She wouldn't like you if she saw you now,_ a voice in the back of his head told him. But he wasn't going to think about that. He couldn't think about that. He scribbled in the rest of the ruffles on his drawing, a vague cloud-like shape extending down from the figure’s neck.

“I think that’s as good as it’s gonna get,” he said with a sigh. He turned to face Emnine and sat there looking at her for a moment, lost in thought. Emnine warbled softly and turned her head, showing the custom markings painted on the back. She had some of those on her body too. They were just decorations, as far as he could tell. They didn't seem to mean anything. He’d never said anything about them before. But now he reached up and traced the ones on her head. “You’ve got custom markings on you,” he said absently. “Did your old owner give you those?”

She didn’t answer.

Anakin pulled his hand away, back to his lap. For a moment he was silent. “Your old owner left you somewhere, didn’t they?” he said softly, after a while. “That’s why you were so scared of me. Why you’re so scared of people. ‘Cause the last one threw you away.”

Emnine didn’t make a noise in response. But she didn’t need to. He knew it was true.

“I won’t ever throw you away,” he said with resolve. “Not ever.”

The next night, they worked together again. This time, he’d given up on the drawing and gone back to his tinkering, trying to fix and old broken audio projector he’d found in the trash. Emnine sat next to him, as always, moving her light around to shine it on his hands as he moved. He glanced up from the floor at the chrono on his bedside table.

“Whoa, it’s after midnight,” he said. “Don’t tell Obi-Wan I was up this late.”

Emnine gave him an assuring whistle.

He worked for a couple more minutes, adjusting the wiring this way and that. When it looked right, he flipped the projector over. “And now for the moment of truth,” he said. He hit the power button. A noise came out, but it sounded more like static than any recognizable sound. He adjusted the controls one way, then the other. Neither one seemed to make a difference. He huffed a sigh, setting the projector down in his lap.

“Looks like this one’s a bust,” he said. “Again.”

But Emnine didn't seem so convinced. She popped out an adapter attachment and stuck it into the adapter port on the projector.

“That doesn’t go in there,” Anakin said with a laugh. Then he jumped and clapped his hands over his ears as Emnine’s speaker suddenly started blaring music at full volume.

_We can’t go on like this... We can’t rebuild our love,_ a woman’s voice crooned out of the speaker, the chorus of a current Coruscanti pop song. It sounded like Emnine was singing it.

Anakin laughed again. “How did you do that?” he shouted over the music. He pulled her adapter out of the port and it stopped. When he put it back in, it started again. “I had no idea astrodroids could play music,” he said. “That’s really cool, Emnine.”

Emnine let out a bashful, questioning chirp.

“Yeah, it is!” Anakin said.

She sat there for a second, then turned on her treads and peeled off with the projector dragging by her adapter wire, barely pausing to pop the door open.

“Emnine!” Anakin yelled after her, scrambling to his feet. “Emnine, what are you doing?” He ran out of his room and chased her down the hall, but he was too far behind her to catch up. “Emnine, come back here!” he called, breathless and laughing, running down the hall barefoot and in his pajamas. He chased her all the way to the lift tube out of the Padawans’ wing and out into the Jedi Knights’ living quarters before he realized where they were going. “You can’t go in Obi-Wan’s room this late,” he panted as Emnine rolled up to the door. “I'm sure he's asleep. And turn that music off!” He stifled a giggle. “You’re gonna wake up the whole Temple.”

Emnine looked back at him, music still blaring. Then she shut it off and rammed the door with her treads.

Anakin put his hand over his mouth, trying to stifle his laughter. “Emnine, stop that,” he said.

Emnine rammed the door several more times, each whack of her treads making an echoing crash. On the third or fourth crash, the door snapped open. Obi-Wan stood just inside it, wearing his pajamas and a dressing gown. His hair was messed up, his expression alarmed. He glanced at Emnine, then at Anakin, and his mouth hung open. “Anakin?” he said. “What in the bloody hell is going on out here? Are you alright?”

Emnine answered for him, by tipping back on her treads, turning her speaker on, and blasting “Rebuild Our Love” again as loud as she could.

Anakin cracked up. “Oh. Um… Emnine can sing,” he said over the ruckus. “We thought you’d want to know.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> If that last scene seems familiar, that's probably because it's a homage to the record player scene from "Lilo and Stitch." I realized there were a lot of parallels to be drawn between this story and "Lilo and Stitch," and a friend suggested I put in a direct reference, so I went for it.


	3. Chapter 3

The Padawans’ wing of the temple was a lonely place at night. During the day, it was alright. Anakin still preferred not to spend much time there. But at night, when all the classes were done and the lights in the hallways lowered, it got cold and eerie. The others liked to congregate in the common rooms, playing games together or watching holovids or talking and joking around until one of the custodians poked their head in and ordered them to be quiet. Anakin had tried to join in, more times than he could count, but he always left feeling lonelier than when he came. His own room wasn't any better. Compared to the close quarters he'd shared with Mom on Tatooine, it felt light-years from anyone he knew. He liked Obi-Wan’s quarters better, even on the days they didn’t talk at all. Once, during a moment of weakness, he’d asked Obi-Wan if he could live with him instead. Obi-Wan said no, the Council wouldn’t allow it. He had let Anakin stay the night with him three times, crowding into his bed like he used to do with Mom. There was always a reason for that, though. One time, Anakin had had a dream that one of the old Masters died, and when he actually died that same day, he’d been so inconsolable over it that Obi-Wan had felt bad for him and hadn’t wanted him to spend the night alone. One of the other times, he’d been sick, and Obi-Wan had been worried because he was still new to the planet and didn’t have any immunities to Coruscanti viruses yet. The third time, he’d gotten into some trouble on a racing holo-message board, and someone had started threatening him and telling him they were going to come hunt him down. But all three of those were back when he was still ten. Now, he was eleven. Almost a teenager. He wasn’t about to ask Obi-Wan if he could sleep in his bed with him now, and Obi-Wan never offered.

Now, when being alone in his room started to get to him, he went somewhere else.

He was on his way out the door with his weatherproof coat and gloves on, his Padawan braid tucked up under a hat, when he remembered Emnine. He hadn’t been about to bring her. But she was still an astrodroid, he realized, even with her glitches. Her navigation skills would come in handy during a race. Might even be the added edge he needed to win.

“Hey, Emnine,” he said. “You want to go somewhere fun?”

She rolled to the door.

“Don’t tell anyone about this, okay?” he said as it slid shut behind them.

The speeder that he rode down to the lower levels was a rental, on an automatic track. Like always, he used Obi-Wan’s ID code to rent it. The droid brains in the speeders never checked to see if the person matched the record on the ID. They assumed the ID chip had to be present to scan in the code, and that other security measures would alert the authorities if a chip was stolen. The reason they assumed the chip had to be present was because they also assumed no one could memorize an ID code and enter it manually. But they hadn’t met Anakin. He told himself he wasn’t doing anything wrong, that what Obi-Wan didn’t know wouldn’t hurt him. He paid upfront with his own money that he earned fixing things around the lower city levels, so Obi-Wan never received a bill. And it wasn’t as though he was planning on stealing anything from him or doing anything illegal under his name.

The speeder he’d be flying in the race would be a rental on a track too, but he’d be steering that. The strip where the speeder stopped was one of those odd places on Coruscant that was neither inside nor outside. It had a ceiling created by the floor of the level above, covered in pipes and ducts, and it was lit by a rainbow of glowing signs, game machines, and scoreboards. The racing speeders were lined up along the back, the glowing tracks jetting off into the surrounding darkness. A set of three huge holo projectors over the ticket counter showed live footage of the current round, the speeders splashing neon colors when they bumped against each other. Anakin swaggered to the counter and slammed his credit pieces down with practiced nonchalance.

“One for the next round,” he said. “Oh, and make it one with a sidecar. I got a droid tonight.”

If luck was on his side, he’d snag enough rings on the track to pay for another round in tokens. The Coruscanti races weren’t at all like the podraces he was used to. They were almost a holo-game, with preset glowing tracks and holographic beacon rings that gave you points if you flew through them before anyone else. But they were still fast paced, and exciting, and far closer to podracing than anything you could get at the Temple.

The Ardennian behind the counter pulled the credits toward himself and slid a glowing blue bracelet toward Anakin in their place. “Number Twelve,” he grunted, motioning to a blue speeder in the lineup.

A teenage Pantoran boy and girl shoved past Anakin as he made for the speeders with his glowing blue _#12_ bracelet on his wrist. The boy laughed and pointed at Emnine. “You think that fancy kark-bucket is gonna save you, ya little runt?” he said. “How old are you anyway? Eight?”

“All the more embarrassing for you when you eat my exhaust fumes, bantha poodoo,” Anakin shot back. He flashed him a rude gesture.

The older boy hooted with laughter.

Anakin grinned as he jumped over the side of his blue speeder. Already, he could feel the adrenaline pumping through his veins. The bright lights, the fast action, the danger, the rough-housing and trash-talking: it was all so much more familiar than the quiet halls and wise, reverent voices of the Temple. All so much more… him. Sometimes he wondered with a sinking feeling what kind of Jedi that made him, what kind of person. But he wasn’t thinking about that tonight. On the track beside him, the last round of racers sped to a halt and jumped out. Some of the speeders slid sideways into the row he was in, ready for another round. “C’mon, Emnine, get in!” Anakin called, beckoning with his hand. He glanced around for her and cocked his head as he spotted her. She was still standing stock-still in the middle of the throng, with people pushing past her, turning her head in jerks and starts. “Emnine!” he called. He stood up in the speeder, beckoning to her again. “Come on, girl! They’re gonna start soon.”

"Droid doesn't even work," he heard the teenage Pantoran boy say.

Emnine just stood there as though her treads had been bolted to the floor.

The screens at the mouth of the tracks flashed to life and the speeders hummed, lifting gently from the track as their rims began to glow. Anakin hesitated just a second, then jumped out, back onto the platform.

“You racing or not, kid?” the attendant at the controls barked at him.

“I’ll go later,” he said, jumping down from the platform. He pushed his way through the crowd, back to where Emnine stood. When he reached her, he put his hand on her dome. “Hey, what’s going on, girl?” he asked.

No response. The people kept pushing past, wearing glowing necklaces and bracelets and drinking out of glowing cups in wild shapes. An especially drunk-looking Abednedo kicked Emnine’s treads as he walked past. 

“Move your karkin' clunker, kid!” he yelled.

She let out a little scream.

“Hey, lay off it, kung-bucket!” Anakin yelled back at the guy. “We’re moving. Come on, Emnine.” He got behind her and pushed her out of the walkway, behind the booth for a shooting game. Thankfully, she came without too much of a fight. Safely behind the booth, he caught his breath and bent down to be eye-to-camera level with her. “What’s the matter?” he asked her over the zapping and chiming sounds of the game. “Are you scared?”

She _hooed_ apologetically in response.

Anakin felt a twinge of anger at himself. Of course she was scared. It had taken her several weeks just to warm up to him. And he’d brought her to a place that would overwhelm most beings.

“We don’t have to race if you don’t want to,” he said. One round didn’t cost that much. He’d win it back eventually. “We can just watch. You wanna watch from here?”

She rocked back and forth, the droid version of a nod.

For the next three rounds of races, they watched the screens from the side of the shooting booth. Anakin did his best to explain everything: the rings and prizes, the hardest segments of the course, the best tricks for getting ahead. After a while, Emnine seemed a little braver, so he took her to explore the other booths. He watched the lights on the games and told Emnine what each one did. He scoped out the weirdest people and outfits to watch, even following one guy into a booth just to get a better look at him. He made his own bets on who would win the games from the sidelines (right every time); drooled over snacks and sweets that he didn’t have the credits to buy; got a drink thrown at him for spying on a couple kissing behind the concession stand. Emnine threw the empty cup right back at the guy with her pincer when he did that. It wasn’t racing, but Anakin still enjoyed it. 

“I think that’s just about all there is to show you,” Anakin said as they watched a game with a spinning wheel that flashed different colors. The cluster of people standing in front of it erupted with cheers or shouts of dismay each time it landed, the attendant sliding the pile of credit chips on the counter to the current winner. “You want to go home now, or go back and watch the races some more?”

Emnine warbled shyly, rocking.

“You want to race?” Anakin looked at her, blank-faced with surprise. “Tell me if that’s not what you’re saying.”

She nodded.

It was all he could do not to shout ‘yippee’ like a little kid. Instead, he jumped up from the ground. “Well, come on, then!” he urged. “They’re gonna start any minute.”

They raced four rounds, and they made the top five places twice.

The next day, it was all he could do to keep his eyes open during his classes. He didn't notice at first when the teacher called on him in history class, then he got the question wrong. During warmup in meditation class, he moved through the routine slower than usual, moving just his arms when he could get away with it. When the teacher had them lie down and clear their minds at the end, he quickly fell asleep, only jolting awake as they were getting up to retrieve their things.

_I’m not getting top marks today,_ he thought as he sat up, rubbing his eyes. It didn’t bother him much. His night at the races had been worth it. He’d give his training everything he had again tomorrow, and in the meantime, it wasn’t as though he _had_ to try. He could still more than keep up.

He kept going like that until he remembered that there was going to be a duel in Master Yendi’s combat class. _That_ woke him up instantly. Combat class was the best one, especially since he'd been transferred up from Master Taud's beginning level class and into Master Yendi's intermediate class. Master Yendi's class holocron even had sections on advanced moves like "flowing water" and "falling leaf" in the last few chapters. Anakin had skipped ahead as soon as he got his copy, and had already started practicing them. So far, most of the actual class sessions had been spent on warmup routines and practicing individual moves. But the duels were almost as good as racing. Anakin practically bounded down the hall to the combat training room, Emnine trailing happily behind him.

When the last Padawan had entered the room, Master Yendi lined them up in two rows facing each other and walked down the middle with his hands behind his back, pairing them off. Anakin bounced in place, barely suppressing a grin.

“All the moves we’ve practiced in our class sessions are at your disposal,” the Cerean Master said once the last pair had been named. “I want to see each combatant successfully stage and block a strike at each of the six body target zones. Each combatant is also to make use of the outer, middle, and inner rings of defense. I will be watching to make sure you use all of them.”

Anakin raised his hand, standing on his toes. “Master!” he said.

“Yes, Anakin?” Yendi faced him. His tone was somewhat weary, even though class had just begun.

“Can I use other moves too?" Anakin asked. "‘Cause I know, like, a bunch of them that aren’t in the basic training chapters.”

“We’re using the moves we’ve covered in our previous sessions,” Yendi stated. “Learning the foundational moves is vital to further progress.”

“But the foundational moves are too easy,” Anakin protested. “I’m already really good at the harder ones. I can handle them.”

The Padawan next to him in the line, a fourteen-year-old Kiffar named Casi Droma, rolled her eyes. 

“Then you should be able to execute the basics flawlessly,” Yendi said. “The rest of the class can learn from your example. Now, to continue the rules for combat.” He turned at the end of the line and addressed the whole class again. “I want everyone to be mindful of their foot positions, lightsaber directions, and posture. You may use a _jung, jung-ma,_ or disarming slash, if you feel comfortable doing so. Also, as always, both combatants in a pair are required to give their partner a chance to deliver one strike for each strike they deliver. I am sure you’re all aware, but I will say it again for clarity: this is a training exercise, not a pit fight. The goal is to demonstrate your knowledge of correct form, not to beat your partner. Are we clear?”

“Yes, Master,” the Padawans echoed. A couple of them stifled laughter.

Anakin puffed his chest out and pretended he didn’t hear them. He knew that last part was aimed at him. Master Yendi had added it into his standard pre-duel speech after two or three incidents. He still thought it was a dumb rule. It wasn’t his fault that Master Yendi kept pitting him against people who couldn’t keep up with him.

“We will take a moment to meditate and prepare ourselves,” Yendi said. “Then we will begin.”

Anakin stretched and tested a few movements. Across from him, his sparring partner Roosh Kalash, a twelve-year-old Barabel, flashed him a nervous grin.

“You fix your datapad?” Anakin asked him as he stretched his arms.

“Huh?” Roosh said. 

“Your busted datapad. Did you do the stuff with the wires like I told you? Should fix it real easy.”

“Oh. Uh, yeah. You didn’t explain it too well. I couldn’t find the part you called the ‘half-moon gear.’ It was a lot more complicated than you made it sound.”

“Oh, well, it’s not actually called that,” Anakin said. “I’m the only one who calls it the half-moon gear. I dunno what it’s really called. I know it seems complicated, to you. But you’ll get it eventually.” He smiled.

Roosh just glanced away from him at the next pair in the line. 

_He'll get it eventually,_ Anakin thought, assured. He took a deep breath and tried to focus into a meditative trance, the way Obi-Wan had taught him. But as soon as he managed to get halfway focused, he noticed that his bladder was full.

“Master!” He raised his hand. “Can I be excused? I need to do, uh, regular systems maintenance.”

Yendi sighed. “Go ahead.”

Anakin ran all the way to the refresher and all the way back when he was done, only slowing down at the door of the training room. As he neared his place in the line, he heard Roosh and the others talking in quiet voices.

“No, I think he really is just using the refresher,” Casi said with a laugh. “I don’t think he has a stash of illegal weapons anywhere.”

“In all honesty, the illegal weapons stash is probably hidden in that droid,” said Tin-Rah, a fifteen-year-old human.

Anakin stopped where he was, behind their backs.

“What’s with the droid anyway?” Roosh asked. “I mean, how come he gets a pet? My master said I’m not allowed to have a tooka cat but he gets a pet droid? How’s that fair?”

“Meh. It’s just the latest desperate attempt by Obi-Wan,” Casi said with a shrug. 

“To do what?” Roosh asked.

“He’s hoping taking care of a droid will make Anakin… ah… not Anakin.”

Tin-Rah blew out a laugh. “Good luck with that.”

“Yeah. A moment of silence for Master Kenobi,” Roosh said with a grin.

At that, Anakin had heard enough. “Hey!” he blurted out as they laughed. “Don’t talk about me like that.”

All three of them started and turned to face him. Casi looked at the floor, her tan face flushing darker. The two boys just exchanged sideways glances with each other.

“Sorry,” Casi said. “We didn’t know you were back.”

“Yeah,” Anakin said. He glanced at the floor. “Obviously.”

“Alright, is everyone ready?” Master Yendi called out before they could respond.

“Yes Master,” the Padawans responded in a chorus. Tin-Rah, Casi, and Roosh fell back into line, as though they'd never been talking at all. 

“Alright," Yendi said. "Ready stances. Face off with your partners.”

Anakin fell into a pre-combat stance, training saber gripped in both hands. Roosh faced him, doing the same. 

“And… go."

Anakin struck first, then parried Roosh’s responding strike. The second time, he struck a little faster, and the third time a little faster than that. Each parry, in turn, was shorter.

“Slow down, man,” Roosh said, eyes wide as he rushed to get his strikes in and parry in time.

“What was that supposed to mean anyway?” Anakin asked, pushing him back toward the wall. “Not Anakin."

“I dunno.” Roosh stepped backward, now holding his training saber up in one long parry to shield himself, barely jiggling it for his strikes. “I didn’t say it.”

“Yeah, well, you laughed.” Anakin struck again, lightning fast. Roosh was standing with his back against the wall now.

“It was just a laugh.” He blocked the strike and made a fast, awkward little jab of his own. “Lay off me! You’re not following the rules.”

“I’m giving you a chance, you’re just not fast enough.”

“Can you stop, man? You’re gonna hurt me. I didn’t even want to fight you!”

“You’re just scared of me ‘cause I’m more powerful than you are.” Anakin struck again, as Roosh stumbled back against the wall.

“That’s not why,” Casi’s voice cut in. 

Anakin started as a third training saber was thrust between them, the point leveled at his chest. Casi held it in one hand, standing to the side of the two combatants. 

Anakin whipped to face her. “You wanna fight me too?” he challenged her. “‘Cause I’ll fight you. I’ll fight you, and I’ll make you sorry you ever said anything about me.” He jabbed his training saber at her.

But before he could move again, a strong hand on his shoulder pulled him back. “Anakin, that’s enough,” Master Yendi’s voice ordered from behind him. “I thought I was clear about the purpose of this exercise.”

“He gets it, Master,” Casi said in a disgusted tone. “He just doesn’t care.”

“She was saying things about me!” Anakin said. "She asked for it."

Master Yendi raised his hand, silencing him. “Casi, be kind to Anakin,” he said. “You're the older and more experienced Jedi here. I expect you to act the part.”

Casi huffed. “You’re taking _his_ side? Master, this isn’t… it’s not fair. To _any_ of us. Our class was perfect before he got transferred in here, and ever since he came it’s been nothing but the Anakin show. All we ever do is applaud his _great_ moves, and… and let him bend the rules, and try to keep him from blowing up. I’ve had enough!”

“Hey!” Anakin said. “That’s not true. Don’t say that about me!”

“Anakin, don’t shout,” Master Yendi said. “Casi, if you’re feeling frustrated, you may talk to me after class, or discuss it with your Master. But right now, we will focus on our training.”

“Why, so he doesn’t hear?” Casi said. She waved her hand at Anakin. “I’m tired of tiptoeing around him all the time. Everyone is. The other Padawans are all scared of setting him off. Even some of the Masters are. Poor Obi-Wan – I mean, Master Kenobi – always looks like he’s been through a war!”

“Don’t say that about Obi-Wan!” Anakin yelled, even though he’d been told not to yell. His hands clenched into fists at his sides. “He wants me here. He _asked_ to train me.”

“Yeah, well, he didn’t know what you were like then,” Casi said dismissively. 

At that, Anakin's anger burned so hot it eclipsed everything else. “Shut up!” he yelled, and, before he could think to stop himself, he threw a Force blast at her.


	4. Chapter 4

Anakin stood frozen, facing Casi. He regretted what he’d done instantly. But this time it wasn’t just regret. This time, he felt horror too. He’d never used the Force in anger before. He'd never _seen_ someone use the Force in anger before, except the brief glimpse he caught of the Sith Lord on Tatooine. Casi shook her head, blinking. She hadn’t fallen – he felt a sudden wash of relief at that. But the look on her face was blank.

“Did you just…?” she asked, in an equally blank voice.

Around them, the others stood staring, their training sabers in their hands. They hadn’t seen what happened, judging by the looks on their faces. A few of them turned to each other and talked in hushed voices. Anakin looked at the floor, then back up at Casi and Master Yendi.

“I… I’m sorry,” he said.

“Go wait in one of the private training rooms,” Master Yendi said. “Think about what you just did, and about how you got to that point. I’ll come talk to you after class. Casi, I’ll speak to you after class as well.”

“Yes, Master,” Casi said, her head held high.

Anakin couldn’t even manage that. He hesitated just a second before turning to leave, trying to gauge Master Yendi’s feelings in the Force. Was he angry? Horrified? He couldn’t tell anything. He turned to go and crossed the room quickly, without looking up.

For the rest of the class period, he sat in the little training room. It couldn’t have been more than half an hour, but there wasn’t a chrono in the room, and it felt like forever. He did genuinely try to do as Master Yendi had said, to determine what had brought him to the breaking point. But he couldn’t find an answer. He was angry, that much he knew. But other people got angry, and they never lashed out the way he’d done. The only thing he could think was that everyone else must have been born with some natural ability to control their feelings and to do the right thing, and that he'd been born without it. He was sure that wasn’t what Master Yendi wanted from him at all. Jedi were supposed to reflect and improve themselves, not give up. But he couldn’t do any better, no matter how hard he tried.

_I’m good at everything except the things that matter,_ he thought, sitting curled up in the middle of the floor.

When Master Yendi finally opened the door, he got to his feet.

“You seem calmer now,” Yendi said. “Have you learned anything about yourself in this past half hour?”

Anakin looked down at his hands. “No, sir,” he said quietly. “I just am how I am.” He shrugged, a defensive edge creeping into his voice in spite of him. “I can’t change it.”

“Do you truly want to?” Yendi asked. His voice was calm and thoughtful, as though he were making some serious assessment in his two brains. “Consider your answer carefully, for it is an important question.”

_If you say no, you don’t belong at the Jedi Temple,_ in other words. Anakin swallowed, then nodded. "Yes, sir."

Yendi shifted his weight, as though he'd finished his assessment. “Only one of those two statements is true,” he said. “If you truly desire to change, you can. If you cannot, you do not truly desire it. Any being can change their behavior. Any being can choose light over dark, peace over anger.”

_Did I use the dark side?_ Anakin wanted to ask him. The answer terrified him. He couldn’t have, not that easily. He wanted to know for sure, to know how bad the Force blast really made him. But a part of him, a stubborn part deep inside, didn’t want Yendi to know he was scared, and that part won out. He stayed silent.

“But whether you change or not,” Yendi continued, “you must understand the weight of what you did. No one was harmed today. But I give you a grave warning when I tell you that this must not become a pattern. The desire to retaliate is natural. It satisfies something inside of us to ‘get someone back.’ But therein lies the danger. The Force does not tell you when to stop, any more than the force of gravity lets you stop falling before you hit the ground. If you let yourself fall toward the dark side, you will keep falling. A small Force blast to teach someone a lesson, to scare them into line, will quickly turn into a blast that wounds, and then into one that kills. You must always remember this, for it is the truth of the Force. Whenever you desire retribution, imagine the object of your anger dead at your feet. Remind yourself of the path you are taking when you choose anger, and of where the endpoint of that path lies.”

Anakin looked up at him, one hand hanging onto his other arm. All at once, an intensely vivid image filled his mind, of Casi crumpled on the floor dead, with dark blood streaming from her nose and mouth. He didn’t want that. He could never want that. He tried to force the image out of his head, but it wouldn’t go.

_I don’t want that,_ he thought. His gaze dropped to the floor, and he shook his head as tears filled his eyes. _I don’t want that. I don’t want that._

Yendi stood silent and serious, reading his emotions. Anakin could feel his eyes on him, staring right through him. He couldn’t guess whether he was feeling the right thing, whether or not he’d passed Yendi’s test. He desperately wanted to. He desperately wanted the test to be over so he could go home. At last, the stubborn part of him had gone completely silent.

“I informed your Master of what happened,” Yendi said at last. His expression didn’t change. “He will be here to pick you up soon.” 

When Obi-Wan arrived, he was out of breath, as though he’d walked across half the Temple without stopping. As soon as Anakin saw him, he ran to him.

“Master!” he said, his eyes welling up in spite of him.

But Obi-Wan walked past him. “What happened?” he asked Master Yendi.

“He threw a Force blast at someone,” Roosh answered for Yendi, his eyes big as saucers. “And he didn’t even move. He could _kill_ someone without even moving a muscle!”

“He hasn’t killed anyone,” Obi-Wan said sharply. “He lost control for a moment, that’s all. Everyone is alright. Please, let me speak to Master Yendi.”

Yendi took Obi-Wan aside and spoke to him in a low tone. As he did, Obi-Wan’s face fell. “I’ll speak to him,” he said once Yendi had finished. But he didn’t even have to do that. The look on his face said enough.

"We'll talk later," was the only thing Obi-Wan said as he and Anakin left. They went straight from Master Yendi's classroom to a private meeting room, where Obi-Wan met up with Master Yoda. He was going to ask Yoda for advice on an appropriate punishment, Anakin guessed. That had always been a thing with Obi-Wan. The other Padawans’ Masters made decisions and gave out punishments based on just their own judgement. But Obi-Wan almost always consulted Yoda or another older Master first. Anakin waited in the hall as they talked inside their meeting room, Emnine standing a few paces away. He’d get some undesirable assignment as a punishment, he knew. Or be banned from practicing combat for a week, or given work with the temple custodians. That didn’t bother him. Watto used to give him extra work when he acted up too. Sometimes he whooped him. The whoopings didn’t hurt all that bad, and work didn’t upset him. He held his head high and took whatever was coming to him, letting it roll right off him like sand off a bantha’s hide.

What bothered him was how long Obi-Wan had been talking to Yoda, and the distressed tone he could hear in his voice through the door. He’d never heard him sound that upset before. Not about him.

_Poor Master Kenobi always looks like he’s been through a war,_ Casi’s words echoed in his head. _He didn’t know what you were like then._

_It’s not true,_ he told himself. _He wants me here. He’s always wanted me here._ They fought sometimes, and Obi-Wan didn't talk much, and he could be hard to please, but none of that changed the fact that he was wanted. Did it?

As he listened to Obi-Wan’s voice, not hearing the words, all the headaches and the silence and the lack of smiling started to take on a new meaning.

_It’s not because of me,_ he told himself. _It can’t be. It can’t be… can it?_

At last, he couldn’t stand it any longer. He crept to the door and pressed his ear against it.

“…more than just a temper,” he heard, in Obi-Wan’s voice. “He’s… destructive. I don’t know what else to call it, Master. He’ll create something – a drawing, or a piece of machinery – and then smash it, or tear it up. It’s like a compulsion he has. He sabotages any friendships he makes with other Padawans his age. He tried as hard as he could to alienate the droid you gave us for at least the first week we had it. I just… I don’t understand. He hasn’t suffered a grave loss. He hasn’t seen battle or been scarred. Not since Naboo, and that didn’t seem to impact him at all. He just has this… darkness, deep inside him.”

“Darkness, we all have inside us,” Master Yoda’s voice replied. “Natural, it is, for it to emerge in adolescents.”

“In teenagers, yes,” Obi-Wan said. “Anakin is only eleven.”

“Fear, I sensed in young Skywalker from the beginning,” Yoda said. “Against Qui-Gon’s decision to train him, I was. If too much for you he has become, address this with the Council, you must. Now that trained in the ways of the Force he is, remain open to us, no easy path does.”

“I know, Master,” Obi-Wan said in a serious tone. “I hesitate to bring this to the Council. I hope I can determine what I need to do before it comes to that. But I will heed your warning.”

“Then in that case, trust in the Force, you must,” Yoda said. “And in yourself, also, you must trust. I know you, Obi-Wan. Known you since you were a small child, I have. You will do what is right.”

“I only hope I can,” Obi-Wan said. “I do not take this burden lightly. I’ve read holocrons, I’ve meditated. Often, I lie awake at night…”

Anakin couldn’t bear to hear any more. He stepped away from the door and stood in the middle of the hall, his chest tight and aching. He’d meant to go back to the chair he’d been sitting in before, but seconds passed, and still he stood there frozen. Everything he’d heard Obi-Wan say replayed in his head, each word like a shot to his gut.

Destructive.

Darkness deep inside him.

This burden.

_Casi was right._ Somehow, she was right. She’d sensed it, or she’d heard Obi-Wan say something when he wasn’t around, or… it didn’t matter. He stood there frozen, staring at his feet. The hallway seemed to stretch out forever, and he felt as lost, conspicuous, and out-of-place as a fly on a starship’s viewport. He was brought back by a nudge against his back, and he turned to see Emnine gently bumping him.

“She’s not broken, she’s special,” he remembered Obi-Wan saying, the day he’d given her to him. Anger spilled over from inside him, hot as magma.

“Go away,” he said quietly, his hands clenched into fists at his sides.

Emnine gave him a questioning little coo and bumped him again.

“I said go away!” He shoved her away from him. “Stupid broken droid. I don’t want you. And I can’t fix you.”

Emnine stared at him for a long while, looking crushed. Finally, she turned around and rolled slowly away down the hall. A wave of regret hit Anakin, the same way it always did. It took everything in him not to run after her, to throw his arms around her dome and burst into tears and tell her he was sorry, that he hadn’t meant any of it. But he steeled his resolve and stood still. He’d push her away eventually, if he didn’t do it now. That was just how he was.

“I can’t fix you,” he mumbled, turning away. “I can’t even fix myself.” He sat back down with his hands between his knees, staring at the floor. “I don’t think there’s anyone who can fix me.”


	5. Chapter 5

The moment right after Emnine left was the worst one Anakin had ever lived through. For a long while, he sat in the hall, staring down at his hands. He could see no paths ahead of him, and he had no idea what he was going to do next. He wasn’t sure he could find the courage to do anything at all. But eventually, the awful moment passed, and when it did, he was left with a choice. It didn’t take him long to decide that he was going to run away. He’d do it right after he went to Obi-Wan’s quarters for their bedtime meditation, he determined. That way, he’d have all night to get a head start before anyone came looking for him. Where he’d go next, he wasn’t sure. But he’d find somewhere. He’d get a job as a mechanic working for a smuggler’s crew, or he’d make it to a planet that had podracing and make a name for himself as a racer. He had plenty of useful skills. He’d be alright. It hurt when he thought of Obi-Wan waking up the next morning to find him gone. He’d sounded so sad, even when he was talking to Master Yoda in the meeting room.

_But he won’t have to be sad anymore, once I’m gone,_ he told himself. _I’ll come back and visit him someday, once I’ve made it big._

Yeah, he’d do that, for sure. He made a promise to himself that he would. By the time Obi-Wan and Master Yoda emerged from their meeting room, there was no doubt in his mind at all.

Obi-Wan banned him from practicing combat for the next two weeks, as he'd suspected he might, and gave him an assignment to meditate and learn to control his emotions. He barely heard any of that. When Obi-Wan and Yoda dismissed him, he went straight to his room and packed a bag with everything he thought he’d need. Then he made his bed, taking care to make it look perfect, and set the bag on it for when he came back that night. The rest of his things he left where they were. As he stood looking at his treasures on the shelf, the racing posters on the walls, Emnine’s port with its little flimsi picture of himself, he felt a sudden ache deep in his chest. He never thought he’d be attached to his cold, lonely room light-years from everyone else. For a minute, he almost lost his courage and threw the whole plan away. But he steeled himself again.

_There isn’t anyone that can fix you,_ he reminded himself. _You’re just a little broken machine, and you don’t belong here._ He’d be better off on his own, out in the world where he could be who he wanted. It would be better for everyone. He’d left everything he knew once already; he was strong enough to do it again.

When he went to Obi-Wan’s room, he did his best to appear calm, to act like it was just a normal night. Even so, he found himself sitting with his head down and hugging himself, as though some instinct were telling him to make himself as small as possible.

“You look cold,” Obi-Wan said. “Do you need something hot to drink to warm you up?”

Anakin glanced up at him, standing by his little cooking unit. He still had his full Jedi outfit on, even though it was only a few hours before bedtime. He never wore anything less for their trainings or meditation sessions.

“I’m making some tea for myself if you’d like some,” he said.

“Okay,” Anakin said quietly.

Obi-Wan set the water to heat up and got out two cups. His presence was exactly the same as it always was, as though nothing had happened at all.

“So… you’re not angry? About earlier?” Anakin asked. He twisted the fabric of his sleeve. “Or… well, disappointed.” Obi-Wan didn’t get angry.

“No,” Obi-Wan said, as though being disappointed had never even crossed his mind. “You were reprimanded earlier, and you understand that what you did was wrong. I could see that plainly enough. You’ll do what's been asked of you to set yourself right. I trust it won’t happen again. There’s no sense in dwelling on what is past.”

Anakin looked down at his lap, a lump forming in his throat. He fought the feeling down, just barely. But it didn’t stay away for long. A moment later, Obi-Wan handed him his cup of tea and sat down next to him. As he looked down into his teacup, the ceramic warming his hands, his vision swam with tears.

_Come on, Skywalker, get it together,_ he scolded himself. He’d expected their final meditation to be cool and businesslike, just something they had to do every night. He’d been preparing himself for that, for the sting of Obi-Wan’s detachment and disappointment. But this was somehow worse. He had to say something to him, he decided. It was the least he could do, on their last night together as Master and Padawan. When he felt he could trust his voice again, he turned and looked Obi-Wan in the eyes.

“Master?” he said.

Obi-Wan turned to face him, looking almost surprised. 

“Thank you,” he said. He glanced away from Obi-Wan’s face, then back again. “For… for taking me. It’s been good. I know I don’t tell you that much, but it has.”

The look in Obi-Wan’s eyes changed, as though he were thinking hard about something. Anakin could tell how smart he was when he got that look, though he could never guess what he might be thinking about. He reached over an patted Anakin's back. “It will only keep getting better,” he said gently, and returned his hand to his lap. For a moment, they sat in silence, drinking their tea. Then Obi-Wan turned to face Anakin again, as though he’d just had an idea. “How about you sleep here tonight?” he asked. “If you don’t mind. I’ve been battling my darker emotions today too, and I think some company would do me good.”

“I didn’t think you had any dark emotions, Master,” Anakin said. “But... yeah. I can do that, if you want.” He’d leave tomorrow instead. It was the least he could do. 

When they finished their meditation, he went back to his room to get his pajamas. Emnine was asleep in her port when he got there, and he felt a sharp pang of guilt when he saw her. He got his things quietly, without waking her. He wasn’t ready to deal with what he’d said to her earlier just yet. Or… he wasn’t going to at all, rather. It wasn’t as though he’d get many other chances, he reminded himself. She was Jedi property. She wouldn’t be coming with him. His bag sat on the bed, reminding him of that.

_Tomorrow will work just as well,_ he thought, and looked away from it.

When he got back to Obi-Wan’s room, Obi-Wan was wearing his pajamas and dressing gown. It was still strange seeing him dressed like that. He looked less… Master-like. Like the older Padawans when they had their sleepovers in the common rooms. 

“I’m going to watch a holovid before bed,” he told Anakin. “You can join me if you’d like.”

They sat side-by-side on the sofa until bedtime, watching a recording of a lightsaber tournament from years ago. Obi-Wan added his own remarks to the announcers’ commentary, telling Anakin which Masters he’d met in person, pointing out signature moves and highly difficult ones. It wasn’t quite like the other Padawans’ sleepovers, but it was close. Better, in some ways. When it was time to turn in, they climbed into bed together, with Anakin sandwiched in between Obi-Wan and the wall. He wouldn’t sleep much, he was sure. Now that he had another day, he had a chance to make a good plan for where he was going and what he’d do when he got there. He tried his best to concentrate and to get his plans finalized. But the bed was comfortable and warm, especially with another person close, and the sound of Obi-Wan’s breathing and the glow of his presence were calming. Before long, he was too drowsy to plan anything. He couldn’t tell by his breathing whether Obi-Wan was asleep or not, but his presence felt like he was awake. It still felt that way when Anakin drifted off.

In the dead of night, he woke up to hear Obi-Wan snoring softly, and felt Obi-Wan’s arm draped over him, holding him in close to him. He fell back asleep without moving it.

The next morning, Obi-Wan made them some of his signature “trashy Coruscanti diner food” for breakfast. They talked a little about the tournament while they ate it.

“Did you fight like that back when you were in tournaments?” Anakin asked.

Obi-Wan laughed. “No. Not even close.”

Anakin didn’t quite believe him. “You should take it up again,” he said.

“Maybe someday,” Obi-Wan said, though his tone suggested he wouldn’t seriously think about it. “Right now I have more important things to devote my time to.”

When they finished their food, Anakin gathered the dishes and took them to the sink.

“You don’t have to do that, Anakin,” Obi-Wan said gently as he began washing them.

“I don’t mind,” Anakin said.

Obi-Wan joined him, drying the dishes as he finished washing them. It only took them a minute, working together. Neither of them spoke. A few minutes later, Anakin went back to the Padawans’ wing to get cleaned up for his morning classes. When he got to his room, he stared at the bag on his bed for a while, then unpacked it and put his things away.

In the days that followed, Emnine went back to the way she’d been in the beginning. It was all Anakin could do to get her to come to her port, let alone to him. He let her go where she wanted – that was better than scaring her or pushing her to do things she didn’t want to. But it hurt to be back at the start when they’d done so much better before, and it hurt knowing that he was the one to blame for the change.

“She won’t come to me anymore,” he told Obi-Wan sadly one night. “She hasn’t since I pushed her.”

“I don’t think it was the push,” Obi-Wan said. “You told her you didn’t want her. I think she’s understandably hurt.”

Anakin had told him what he said to Emnine in the hall, even though he hadn't told him - and would never tell him - the rest. “Yeah,” he said quietly. “I do that a lot. Hurt things.” He looked down, twisting his sleeve. “I don’t mean to be the way I am. I know it’s hard for you. I know you read all kinds of things, and pray to the Force, and… and lay awake at night, and….” He couldn’t finish the thought.

Obi-Wan looked suddenly troubled. “Who told you that?” he asked.

“I just know.”

Obi-Wan opened his mouth and was silent for a second. “I don’t… Anakin, I don’t do all of that because there’s something wrong with you," he said. "I hope you don’t think that.”

“You don’t?” Anakin looked away from him again. “I thought it was ‘cause you were trying to figure out how to make me better.”

“No.” Obi-Wan shook his head. His expression was earnest, his eyebrows drawn together. “No, I’m doing it to try to make _me_ better. The fault isn’t with you. I don’t want to fail you. I want to give you the best chance possible in life, because you deserve that.”

“But I have darkness in me,” Anakin said. “I know it’s true. I can feel it.”

“Darkness has found its way inside you,” Obi-Wan said. “I feel it trying to take control of you, trying to hurt you. The darkness isn’t you. And the fact that I’ve let it get to you as much as it has – that I haven’t been able to prevent it from hurting you – is my failure, not yours. Never yours.”

Anakin opened his mouth to say something, then closed it again. He’d never seen Obi-Wan look the way he did now. It was as though the stern Master and perfect Jedi he could never live up to had suddenly melted away, and he just looked… lost. He looked the way Anakin had felt, standing in that huge, cold hall. Anakin felt a sudden urge to reach out and touch his hair, the way Obi-Wan sometimes did with him, but at the last second he lost his courage.

“You do do that,” he faltered, his hand half raised. “It’s okay, Master.”

“No, it’s not okay, if I made you feel that our problems were on your head.”

“You didn’t. I… kind of came to that conclusion by myself.”

“Well, don’t feel that way," Obi-Wan said. "Please. You have a good, strong heart. A heart of kyber, like the brightest stars. You’ve had to overcome so much so young, and in spite of it all, you never stopped being kind. You never stopped helping others without being asked, never stopped believing that you can fix what’s broken in the world. I see that shining through, no matter the storms on the surface.”

Anakin thought on it for a moment. Then he nodded. If Obi-Wan believed it, he could too. 

That night, he pulled the creature training holocron from the library again. This time, he pulled a second one on helping troubled and mistreated creatures too. It was several more days before Emnine started following him again, and even then, it wasn’t all the time. But he’d take what he could get. On the third night, she rolled to the side of his bed as he sat reading one of his holocrons. He wasn’t sure if astrodroids could read, but she seemed curious about the projection. He felt a twinge of guilt at the word ‘troubled’ at the top of the display.

“I’m not reading this to try to make you better,” he told her. “I’m reading it to make me better. I don’t want to fail you. I want to give you the best chance possible in life, because you deserve that.” He smiled at her.

Emnine warbled contentedly in response.

In the days that followed, Anakin felt a change in himself. He’d tried to do well at his classes before; he’d tried to be a better Jedi before, tried to not get angry. None of it had lasted long. But the moment Emnine started shadowing him for real again, it was as though a switch flipped inside him, turning him from dark to light.

_She still wants me around,_ he thought. _Even though I called her dumb and broken and told her I didn’t want her._

He'd be the best droid owner ever from now on, he’d promised her in his head. All his other promises to be good had faded, but the drive to give Emnine everything a droid could want from an owner – the drive to deserve her – that burned bright enough to keep him going forever. He behaved in his classes. He resisted the urge to get angry and to fight. He didn’t break things or sneak out or mouth off at the Masters. And he wanted to do more still. He wanted to do something for Obi-Wan too, to let him know that he was right about him, and that he was doing a good job. He wasn't sure yet how to do it, but he knew he would know it when he saw it. 

It was just over a week later, during his afternoon history class, that his lightning strike of inspiration finally hit. The teacher was just wrapping up when all the lights and projectors in the room flickered and went out.

“What’s going on?” the boy next to Anakin asked.

“Power’s out,” Anakin said, without thinking.

His classmates’ presences were agitated, startled. Some of them talked to each other in low voices. For a minute, Anakin didn’t understand why they were so spooked by a power outage. Then he realized they’d probably seen very few if any outages, growing up on Coruscant. The teacher had them file out into the hall, where they waited for five or ten minutes, standing in the dark.

“They’ll just turn the backup generator on,” the Padawans assured each other. “It’ll be back any minute.”

But it didn’t come back. When it had been fifteen minutes or so, the teacher led them to the lift tube and up to one of the meeting rooms with windows so they could have some light. The room was full of agitated Jedi when they arrived, including an Ithorian technician. The teacher made straight for him and began asking him questions.

“ _Tomorrow?_ ” Anakin heard her say in alarm. “They can’t just do a manual override?”

A few seconds later, she crossed the room to rejoin the Padawans, who were shifting their weight and exchanging silent glances, their presences more nervous by the second.

“He said the system went down for the whole block,” she said. “There’s a switch that can turn the backup generators on, but the droids can’t flip it until they receive an approval message from the district control center, and the center is backed up dealing with a crisis at one of the spaceports. The technicians said it could be as long as a day before it’s back on.”

A chorus of protests and questions arose from the Padawans, but the teacher just repeated what she'd already said. There was no way for the power company to turn the backup generators on without approval from the district control center.

“I can’t believe they’re that inefficient!” Anakin said, shaking his head as the others voiced their dismay again. “I know how generator terminals work. It’s literally a button. All the droid has to do is roll in and push it. It would take one second.”

“It’s Coruscant,” the girl next to him said. “Get used to it.” 

Anakin opened his mouth, but no words came out. _They could do it in one second,_ he thought, feeling ready to blow a fuse. _But they’re going to make us wait a whole day! There are little kids here, and old people. They can’t be without light and heat for a whole day, especially not on this freezing planet. I’ve_ seen _the terminal. I know how they work. Turning the backups on is the easiest thing in the world._

Then, suddenly, a spark lit inside his mind.

_I’ve seen the terminal,_ he thought with dawning realization. _I know how they work._ He froze in place, arms at his sides. _I could find the button. The droids can’t go in there without their approval thingy, but_ I’m _not bound by their algorithms._

He thought it through, tried to determine if he could really do it. It would be risky. If he was caught, he’d be arrested by the Coruscanti police and thrown in a holding cell, Jedi or not. If he got turned around inside the terminal, he could get lost in the machinery and never find his way out. If he accidentally touched the wrong component or lost his footing over an exhaust shaft, he could even die. But – and this outweighed everything else – this was something he could fix. Something good, something important, that he and only he could do. He weighed his chances, and decided he could make it. 

_I’ll make it up to them,_ he thought, his excitement rising. _I’ll make it all up to them, and then some. I’ll make them proud._

“Come on, Emnine,” he said. He nudged her with his hand, edging his way through the crowd to the door. The girl next to him gave him a questioning look. “Be right back,” he said. “Gotta do regular systems maintenance.”

She didn’t stop him.

Once he and Emnine were through the door, he ran for the lift tube, making for the nearest exit.


	6. Chapter 6

The speeder Anakin rode to the power block was a rental on autopilot, the same as the ones he used when he went to race. He used Obi-Wan’s ID code like he always did, though this time he felt a stronger twinge of guilt than usual. Which was stupid, because this time he was doing it for a good reason, so it was more justified than it usually was.

_This is the last time, though,_ he promised himself as he jumped in. _I won’t use it for races anymore. Just this once. Just for this._

The speeder track didn’t stop at the power terminal, but it did cross over the top of it. Anakin set his course to fly over it twice: once to see if there was a safe landing place he could jump to, and the second time to jump if there was one. As the speeder neared the terminal, he was hit with just how _big_ it was, even though he'd seen it before. Coruscant had its own kind of big, which Anakin suspected didn't exist many other places in the galaxy. A kind of big that he felt in his gut, that gave him an instinctive wash of fear even though his brain knew there was nothing to be afraid of. The power terminal fit the bill. It could almost have been a city of its own: a grid of blocky, warehouse-sized components and massive, snaking pipes, with towers and spires jutting up from between them like tall buildings. Anakin pushed the usual queasy feeling down and leaned over the speeder's side, focusing his attention on trying to locate the controls and a safe place to land. As luck would have it, he managed to spot a structure near the middle of the complex that looked like a much bigger version of the power system control boards at Watto’s shop. The one at Watto’s shop had been maybe twice Anakin’s own height and looked like three big gray boxes stacked on top of each other. This one was a wide rectangular tower, jutting up ten or more stories from the sprawl of machines below, with more units than Anakin could count. A narrow, exposed platform ran around it, close to the top, and Anakin thought he could just make out a service door, shadowed in a recessed alcove at the center of the tower. The drop to the platform would be a long one, but he was confident he could do it without getting hurt.

_Perfect,_ he thought with a thrill as the speeder passed over the tower. Then he remembered Emnine. He glanced at her where she sat in the passenger seat, turning her head to look to one side of the speeder and then the other. He’d turned her tracker off back at the Temple so Obi-Wan couldn’t see where they were. But still. She was Emnine. And he was about to ask her to jump out of a moving speeder in midair. For a second, he wondered what he was thinking bringing her at all. But then he remembered that he'd need her to zap the security locks down so he could get inside. _She’ll just have to make it,_ he thought. Strangely enough, he felt assured that she could.

“You’re gonna need to follow me,” he said to her. “Same as you do at home. Okay? When you see me jump, you jump too. Use your launcher thingy, like you were jumping out of a port in a Starfighter. Can you do that?”

She warbled agreement.

The speeder reached the end of the power block, then turned around and began flying back the other way. Anakin tensed in anticipation, his heartrate climbing.

_It’s no different than when we practice Force jumps at the Temple,_ he told himself. _No different than when Obi-Wan had me practice jumping out of a ship’s hatch._

The control tower grew nearer up ahead. He climbed onto the edge of the speeder’s door, poised in a crouch with one foot forward. His hands were slick with sweat, and he had to adjust his grip to keep them from sliding on the smooth metal.

“Any second now, Emnine,” he said uncertainly, his pulse pounding down his arms.

The controls passed directly below. He zeroed his focus onto the platform, took a deep breath, and jumped.

The drop sent his insides leaping up into his throat. As he free-fell toward the structure, he rolled into a somersault, completing the last of the drop feet-first. For a heart-stopping few seconds, he saw the control tower rushing nearer and felt sure he was going to miss the platform entirely. Then his feet hit the edge, the impact passing through him like a shockwave. He stumbled forward and grabbed a pipe to steady himself, his arms trembling. As soon as he found his footing, he craned his neck up, holding his breath in anticipation. 

_Wwwweeeaaaahhhh!_ Emnine screamed as she launched out of the speeder.

Anakin couldn’t help it – he cracked up. As Emnine barreled toward him headfirst, he grabbed onto her in the Force to ease her landing. She flipped her cylinder around first, then her legs, one at a time _._ He released her a meter or so above the platform, winded from the exertion, and her treads hit the metal with a resounding _clunk._ She jostled and turned her head, looking confused.

“Can all Artoos flip like that, or just you?” Anakin asked her, catching his breath.

Emnine beeped a response, though he wasn’t sure if she was saying ‘we all can,’ or ‘just me.’

Together, they hurried toward the service door on the other side. Anakin noted the formations of the wires on the walls and underfoot, trying to parse out which ones went to the security system. By the time they reached the door, he felt fairly certain he'd found them.

“Okay, Emnine,” he said, pointing to a bundle of black wires that ran over the edge of the platform. “I need you to zap this, and zap it hard. Give it all you’ve got. It’ll take the security lock down so we can get inside.”

She stared at him uncertainly.

“Go on,” he urged. “Zap it!”

She popped out a pincer, clamped the wire, and released a sustained electric jolt so intense that it made her shake on her treads like a racing pod revving its engines. A _pop_ and a fizzling sound came from the wires and a dying hum sounded from inside the tower.

“Good girl!” Anakin cheered. He reached for the door in the Force and pulled with everything in him. It slid open, just a crack. “Come on!” he panted, beckoning to Emnine, and they slipped inside just before the crack closed.

The inside of the tower was even darker than the Temple had been. For one brief second, Anakin felt a wave of panic at being locked in such a huge, dark space, surrounded by a maze of giant machines with no means of escape. But he quickly overcame that.

_The door is still there,_ he reminded himself. _I can just open it again. Besides, all I have to do in the dark is find the lights._ They had to have some for living maintenance workers. He felt his way along the wall until he found something that felt like a light box. Sure enough, when he flipped the switch, the lights came on.

“That’s better,” he said, breathing a little easier.

As his eyes adjusted, he took a second to assess his surroundings. The interior of the tower was as packed with pipes, wires, and machine components as the outside had been. Some of the cables and pipes were thicker around than he was, some of the components five-meter giants that made him feel like a kid’s doll in a life-sized room. But the gaps between them were wide enough for him to fit through, and the pipes overhead were close enough together vertically that he could climb if he needed to. He squared his shoulders, his confidence reaffirmed. 

“Now just to find the override switch,” he said.

Based on the wiring, he was able to make a fairly confident guess. Beyond that, it would just be trial and error until he found it.

“Emnine, record our steps, okay?” he said. “That way we can find our way back.”

She switched her recording mode on. Then they set off. Anakin got comfortable with sliding in and out of the machines quicker than he would have thought. He had to help Emnine a couple of times, lifting her over pipes on the floor or sliding her through tight openings sideways. Once, he thought he heard a sound close by, another being moving around. But when he froze and held his breath, he heard only the whir of the machines. A couple of times, they had to retrace their steps back. A couple times, he lost his bearings and tried not to panic for a second as he stared at the machine components with no clue what he was looking at. But when that happened, he reminded himself that these were just generator parts, much bigger. They were just a power core that serviced thousands of buildings instead of one or two. The components were all the same. The wires he was following would lead him to the control board eventually. He knew that. He just had to be patient, and not allow himself to doubt. To that end, he put his mind to work trying to trace the networks of wires. Most of them were black and seemed to conform to the usual patterns. A few of them were red, and he couldn’t make any sense of those. They almost seemed to be a network of their own, added on haphazardly after the fact. Some of them were just draped between the pipes, not even pinned down to anything.

_I wonder if they’re some kind of backup system,_ he thought, pushing a hanging loop away from his face. The network seemed to have a lot of redundant systems, like most big networks did. _Someone must have overloaded this whole system to short it out at all,_ he thought. _There’s no way it went down because a component was damaged._ He wished he could know what had happened to overload it. He hoped he'd hear about it later on the Holonet.

At last, squeezing through of a dense tangle of wires into a larger opening, he found himself facing wall covered in blinking lights. As he stepped into the open and got a better look, he recognized it as a panel of indicators and control switches.

“That’s it!” he said, his eyes wide. “We found it.” He laughed, not bothering to keep his voice quiet. “We found it!”

Emnine warbled happily, the sound echoing off the pipes.

“Wait here,” Anakin said, and ran to the controls.

“Now let’s see, where’s the override switch?” he asked himself. He glanced around, trying to find something like the override switch on Watto’s generators. _No,_ he thought, searching. _No… no…_

_There!_ He shot his hand out to flip it, then hesitated for a second. What if he was wrong? But no, he told himself. He was sure. He flipped the switch. Around him, a deep whir started up and swelled to life beneath the other machine sounds, so deep and so powerful that he felt it vibrating through his chest.

“I did it!” he said. He looked back to find Emnine among the pipes. “Emnine, you hear that? We…” He stopped short.

Between them, where he had stood a moment earlier, a male Gran stood pointing a blaster at him.


	7. Chapter 7

Anakin froze in place and swallowed.

“Freeze, kid!” the Gran said, even though he already had.

Anakin raised his hands slowly. “I don’t want any trouble,” he said. “I’m not even armed. I don’t have any money.”

“Why are you here?” the Gran demanded. He shifted his weight without pointing the blaster away from Anakin's face.

Before Anakin could answer, a second Gran who looked a lot like the first one stepped out from between the pipes. “I told you there was a droid in here,” he said.

“It’s not a droid. It’s a kid,” the first Gran answered him.

The second one looked at Anakin and made a face. Then he turned to his partner again. “I heard a droid," he said. "There’s a droid in here somewhere.”

Anakin looked at the second Gran, squinting his eyes as he caught a glimpse of red against his coveralls. A longer look told him that he'd seen exactly what he thought he'd seen. Looped around the second Gran's shoulder was a long coil of red wire. “Are you the ones who put the red wires there?” he asked without thinking. “You’re the ones who overloaded the generator, aren’t you?” He laughed. “What did you _do?_ ”

Both Gran tensed. “How much did you see?” Red Wires demanded.

“Why are you here?” Blaster barked, talking over him. He pointed the blaster at Anakin again with extra emphasis, one suction-cup finger on the trigger.

“I didn’t see anything,” Anakin said. His insides clenched into a knot as he raised his hands again. “Really, I didn’t. Just the wires. That’s all I saw.”

“He has a droid,” Red Wires said. “I heard a droid.”

Anakin shook his head hard, making his Padawan braid flip back and forth across his chin. “I don’t have a droid,” he said. “That was just me. I was… whistling.” He whistled his best astrodroid imitation, which wasn’t nearly as good as he would have liked it to be.

“No, it was a droid,” Red Wires said. “I’m not stupid. I know what a droid sounds like.” He turned, scanning the surrounding pipes with his three eyes. 

“She doesn’t even work,” Anakin said hastily. “She broke down, just a second ago. Won’t turn on or nothing.” He glanced at Emnine where she sat hidden and gave the tiniest nod he could manage. _Please pretend to be broken,_ he urged her in his head. He knew what they’d do to a droid with a recorder if they were worried about what he’d seen.

“He does have a droid,” Red Wires said. He nodded to the tangle of pipes. “It’s hiding somewhere in there. We need to find it. Those things have recorders.”

_I knew it,_ Anakin thought, biting down on his lip as he tried to block out the mental image of them blasting a hole through Emnine’s motherboard. But just in time, an idea struck him. “The recorder’s not in the droid,” he piped up.

The two Gran faced him, eyes blinking on their stalks.

“I took it out of her and installed it up by the comm disk before I came down here,” Anakin said nonchalantly, even though it wasn’t true. “Great view of this whole level from up there.”

“You took the cam out of the droid and installed it by the comm disk?” Red Wires asked.

“Come on. I figured out that the system had been overloaded, _and_ that the red wires weren’t supposed to be there. You don’t think I could do it?”

They exchanged a glance.

“It’s broadcasting to the Holonet,” Anakin continued. “In real time. The cops have probably seen whatever you’re doing in here.” He shrugged. “I bet I could still shut it off before they get here, if I go now. _Or_ you could spend that time trying to get the droid to turn on. Your choice.” Between the pipes, he saw Emnine’s lights go out. _Good girl,_ he thought. 

The two Gran stared at each other for a second.

“We can’t chance it,” Red Wires growled. He faced Anakin again. “But we’re taking you to shut it off. And if you try to pull anything, you get a blaster bolt in your back, cam or no cam.”

Anakin nodded. He glanced to Emnine, for just a split second. _Turn back on once we’re gone, and get out of here,_ he urged her in his head, hoping she’d know what to do. _Save yourself. I’ll do the same._

Blaster kept his blaster aimed at him as he walked to join the two Gran, hands up. As soon as he was within arm’s reach, Red Wires grabbed his comm out of his belt and had Blaster shoot a hole through it. Then, with Blaster’s hand gripping his arm and the mouth of the blaster bumping against the back of his head, he led the two Gran off into the maze. He tried to take the narrowest paths he could fit through and the most dangerous climbs he could manage, hoping that eventually they’d get stuck or fall. But he had no such luck. They’d been walking and climbing for some time when Blaster seemed to notice his Padawan braid.

“This kid’s a Jedi,” he said, a hint of wariness in his voice. He turned to Red Wires. “Are we really gonna kill a Jedi?”

“What, you think the Jedi Order’s gonna come hunt us down or something?” Red Wires said. “Don’t be karkin' stupid. We’ll just throw the body into a power cell and incinerate it. They’ll never even get as far as this tower with no leads to go on. Kid vanishes without a trace on a planet like Coruscant, what’re you gonna do?”

“Okay, but what if his Master is in here somewhere?” Blaster said. “These little ones with the braids never go anywhere alone. There’s always an adult with them. They’re like packaged sets.”

Red Wires fell silent.

“Don’t you think maybe he’s trying to stall us?” Blaster continued. “We’ve been walking an awful long time just to get to the comm disk, and we aren’t going in a straight line either. There’s a full-grown Jedi skulking around in here somewhere with a lightsaber, and he’s gonna show up any second. I’d bet on it.”

Red Wires stopped, standing on a narrow platform three or four meters above the ground. Anakin had just been about to lead them out onto a horizontal pipe that connected it to another platform. “You’re right,” he said. “Forget the cam, if there even is one. If the cops haven’t come yet, we can still get out before they show up. We just passed a power cell. We kill him now. Then we get the kark outa here.”

“You wouldn’t dare kill me,” Anakin said. He puffed his chest out. “My Master _will_ come after me. And he’s just about the best fighter in the whole Jedi Order. You two will be sliced into pieces before you even know what hit you.” 

“Go on, do it,” Red Wires barked. “He’s bluffing, just like he did with the cam. Do it, now!”

Blaster hesitated.

_He won’t actually do it,_ Anakin thought. _He’s too scared_. He felt a small rush of pride, knowing full well that Obi-Wan was every bit as intimidating as he’d made him sound.

Blaster blinked his three eyes and clenched his jaw. Then he tightened his grip on Anakin's arm and butted the blaster up against his head.

Anakin’s heart jumped into his throat. “No!” he yelled.

He tried to pull the Force to himself, to throw a blast like he’d done at Casi, but the Force scattered from him like a cloud of sandflies. He cut his losses and shoved his elbows back, into Blaster’s gut, then wrenched himself forward. He wasn’t able to break Blaster’s grip completely, but it loosened enough for him to turn around. He stomped on Blaster’s foot and kicked him in the crotch as hard as he could, then shoved him toward the edge of the platform. Blaster staggered, arms flailing, and fell over the edge. As he grabbed hold of a pipe below, letting out a half-strangled bleat, Anakin bolted. He only made it a few steps before he felt Red Wires’s arms grip him around the waist and throat.

“No! Let go of me!” he said, kicking as Red Wires held him off the ground. “Let go of me!” His voice broke a little in spite of him. He only stopped thrashing when Red Wires jammed a blaster pistol against the side of his head. When he glanced sideways, he saw Red Wires's finger already on the trigger. He was breathing heavily, steadily, his eyes locked on Anakin's face. Slowly, he pressed the trigger in. Anakin stood taller and squared his shoulders, even as his heart fell into the pit of his stomach. He might be about to die, but Red Wires wouldn’t see him break. He wasn’t going to give him that.

“Any last words, Jedi?” Red Wires asked, so close that Anakin could smell the grassy scent of his breath.

“Get karked,” Anakin said.

He closed his eyes tight, bracing for the shot, and wondered how much he’d feel when the bolt pierced his brain.

And then, all at once, the space below them lit up. The hum of a lightsaber echoed off the pipes, louder than usual, and the machinery danced with blue light. Below them, Obi-Wan stood in a ready stance with his blade pointing up at Red Wires. His face was glowingly white in the blue glow of his lightsaber, and his expression was almost enough to make even Anakin feel afraid of him.

Anakin caught his breath. "Master!" he said, his mouth open in a disbelieving smile.

But Obi-Wan didn’t address him. “Unhand him,” he ordered Red Wires. “Unhand him now and I won’t harm you.”

Red Wires cursed, his whole body tensing. “You throw that thing at me and he dies,” he said with a slight tremor in his voice. He pressed the trigger of his pistol again, shoving the mouth even harder against Anakin’s head.

Obi-Wan was still for a second, his eyes locked on Red Wires as though assessing him. Then he shifted his weight, moving his lightsaber ever so slightly, yet with purpose.

Instantly, Red Wires shot his arm out, shaking, and fired three or four rounds at Obi-Wan.

“Drop, Anakin!” Obi-Wan shouted.

Anakin obeyed. As he ducked, he heard the sound of Obi-Wan’s lightsaber swinging, and the bolts bounced back up and flew over his head, at Red Wires. He heard the sizzling _zap_ of an impact and a sharp grunt from Red Wires, then Red Wires’s other arm released him. He fell forward and caught himself on his hands and knees as Red Wires fell off the platform with a series of limp _thuds._

“Stay there,” Obi-Wan ordered. “Don’t move.”

He pushed himself back to his feet, his arms shaking. “Master, there’s another one,” he said hurriedly.

But it was too late. The air erupted with blaster bolts as Blaster reemerged from below, firing a continuous stream, some at Obi-Wan and some at Anakin. Anakin screamed in spite of himself, his arms going up to shield his head as the shots sang past him and seared the machinery behind him. Whipping his head side to side, he glanced across the pipe to the platform opposite him. A moving target was harder to hit, and the other platform had more cover. He bolted. He made it halfway across the pipe before his foot slipped. He yelped, his heart in his throat as he flailed for something to grab onto. But for once, his lightning-fast reflexes didn't pull through. He heard Obi-Wan shout his name as he fell. Then a lower pipe smacked into the back of his head.


	8. Chapter 8

Anakin wasn’t sure of the exact moment when he noticed his surroundings, but when he did, they confused him. His limbs were dangling awkwardly, and he was swaying somehow, or kind of jostling, and he was looking up at Obi-Wan from a weird angle. The lights and shapes around him wavered a little, like he was underwater. He blinked a couple of times, but that didn’t help much.

“Master?” he said. He blinked again and made a face. “You’re kinda blurry.”

Obi-Wan let out a heavy sigh and glanced upward. “Thank the Force,” he said. “I thought I’d lost you.” Anakin felt his arms relax.

_He’s carrying me,_ he realized, with sudden embarrassment. He shifted his weight, raising his head a little. “What happened?” he asked.

“You fell and hit your head,” Obi-Wan said. “Thankfully, I was able to catch you before you hit the floor. You bloody well could have died.”

Anakin scrunched his eyebrows together, trying to think how he could fall, or what exactly Obi-Wan was asking him to do. “Wait, that already happened?” he said, after a few seconds. “I don’t remember it.”

“That’s because you were unconscious.” Obi-Wan’s tone was calm, matter-of-fact. “You blacked out as soon as you hit your head. You just came round a few seconds ago.”

“Oh.” Anakin thought about it for a second, trying to make it register. Part of his brain told him what Obi-Wan had said sounded serious, and another part was kind of thrilled that something so dramatic had happened to him. The words didn’t quite sink in, didn’t quite seem like they were describing something real.

“You’re still a little dazed,” Obi-Wan said. “Just take it easy.”

Anakin thought for a few more seconds and started to feel dizzy. “Yeah, I feel kinda funny,” he admitted, holding his head. “I think I’m just gonna close my eyes for a sec.” He put his arm around Obi-Wan’s neck and rested his head on his shoulder. 

_Did he really say, ‘thank the Force, I thought I’d lost you’?_ he wondered, feeling the swaying motion of Obi-Wan walking. He had just been clobbered on the head, so it was hard to be sure. But he was pretty sure he really had said it. It was a very un-Jedi-like thing to say. A very un-Obi-Wan like thing to say. It made Anakin feel light and giddy, like he was floating. Although, that could just have been from being clobbered on the head too. He stayed the way he was, with his arm draped around Obi-Wan’s shoulders and his head nestled against the side of his neck. He could feel Obi-Wan’s pulse beating, and it was pounding very hard. He thought he could feel his arms quivering too, ever so slightly. But when he stopped walking, he set him down gently and effortlessly, as though he hadn’t weighed anything at all. Anakin felt the tiniest bit disappointed at being put down. But he straightened up and ignored the feeling. As he did, the room seemed to tilt and dip like a starfighter taking a curve.

“Whoa,” he groaned, gripping the edge of the ledge with both hands as he closed his eyes again.

Obi-Wan’s hand was on his back in an instant, steadying him. “Are you okay?” he asked.

Anakin took a deep breath. The swaying feeling subsided some. “I think so,” he said.

Obi-Wan knelt down and cupped the side of his face in his hand. “Let me see your eyes,” he said.

Anakin looked into his eyes and tried not to blink, which of course made him blink more. Obi-Wan’s face was glowingly pale, his eyebrows drawn together. After he’d examined Anakin’s eyes for a few seconds, he held up his hand and told Anakin to follow it with his eyes as he moved it.

“I’m okay, Master,” Anakin said with a small smile. It was the truth. Or he was pretty sure it was, anyway. His head hurt worse than just about anything he could remember, and his thoughts were still a bit muddled, and the room was still wavering a little. But he was already starting to feel more like himself. It was nothing he couldn’t handle.

Obi-Wan straightened up, facing him. “I suppose this might not be the best time to ask you,” he said, “but what in the bloody hell were you doing in here?”

“Oh. Uh, I was turning the power back on.” Anakin perked up, remembering his success. “It worked, didn’t it?”

Obi-Wan’s mouth hung open. “Well – yes, it’s back on, but… what… you don’t just run off like that! You could’ve died. Do you have any idea…?” He shook his head, his mouth hanging open again.

“I didn’t know those two guys were gonna be here,” Anakin protested. “I thought it’d be easy. Really, nothing would have happened if not for them. And I _did_ turn the power back on.” He gave Obi-Wan a little smile.

Obi-Wan drew a deep breath and closed his eyes, pressing his fingers to his forehead. He stayed that way for a few seconds. Then he ran his hand back over his hair. “I’m not going to report this to the Council,” he said. “But only this once, and only because you just scared me half to death blacking out like that. You are never to do something like this again. Is that understood?”

Anakin glanced down at his lap. “Yes, Master,” he said.

“And next time I tell you not to move, you _don’t move_.” Obi-Wan’s stern tone cracked just a little, as though there should have been a ‘please’ at the end of the sentence.

Anakin nodded, a small nod so he wouldn’t get dizzy. “It was just instinct,” he said, a little embarrassed. “I thought I could dodge the shots easier if I was moving.”

“Well, then you don’t listen to your instincts,” Obi-Wan said, in a tone that brooked no argument. “You listen to me. At least until you’re a little older. Okay?”

Anakin smiled again. “Yeah.”

Obi-Wan took another deep breath, his shoulders slumping a little as he exhaled. “You’re sure you’re okay?” he asked.

Anakin gave another small nod. “I’m okay. Are you? You’re awful pale, even for you.”

Obi-Wan rolled his eyes. “I’m fine,” he said, all business.

Anakin stifled a smile.

Obi-Wan pushed himself to his feet and glanced around at the pipes. “Where’s Emnine?” he asked. “She distress-signaled me from this tower, so I assumed she’d be with you. But I haven’t seen her.”

Anakin thought for a few seconds, and his eyebrows scrunched together. “She wasn’t with you?” he asked.

“No. Her signal led me here. If not for her, I never would have found you. But I didn’t see her.” 

“She can’t have gone far,” Anakin said. He slid off the ledge, hanging onto it as he took a second to get steady on his feet. “She played dead when those two guys grabbed me. She probably ran outside after we left. She’s probably right outside the tower.” Obi-Wan put a hand on his back again as he took a few steps, keeping a close eye on him. He opened his mouth to call for Emnine, then remembered the two outlaws. “You… uh, you killed those two guys, right?”

Obi-Wan nodded. “I tried to end things peacefully, but they wouldn’t have it that way.” His presence didn’t change at all when he said it, and his tone was as calm as if he’d been talking about the weather. Anakin wasn’t sure he could ever kill someone and be that calm. But he was glad Obi-Wan had done it. It gave him a small twinge of guilt, being glad that two men had died. “And there aren’t any more?” he asked, trying to put it out of his mind.

“No, the only other life signature in the compound was yours.”

“Okay. Then we’re safe.” Anakin walked quicker, moving ahead of Obi-Wan as he gained the confidence to walk on his own. “Emnine,” he called. “Emnine, where are you? Whistle if you can hear me. Come on, girl. Time to go home.”

Obi-Wan joined in too, searching with a scanner that could scan for droids. They kept searching for some time, calling, scanning, hunting through the maze. They looked outside the service door, by the control board, between the pipes. All the while, the fact that he’d turned off her tracker nagged at Anakin’s mind.

_We’ll find her,_ he kept telling himself. _We don’t need it. She can’t have gone far._ But the longer they searched, the more it felt like he was just saying that to himself so he didn’t have to face the truth. When they’d been looking for twenty minutes or more, he stopped walking near the door and pressed his eyes shut for a second, hanging onto a pipe. He opened his eyes when he felt Obi-Wan’s hand on his back.

“We should go,” Obi-Wan said gently. “You’re hurt. You need to rest.”

“I’m okay,” Anakin insisted, even though it wasn’t completely true. The pain in the back of his head had only gotten worse, and now he was sore all the way down his spine too, and he felt motion-sick if he moved too quickly. “I can keep going. We need to find her.”

“Anakin…” Obi-Wan paused, as though trying to soften the blow of what he was about to say next. “My scanner has covered the whole tower. If she was inside it or near it, I would have picked her up by now.”

“Okay, so she left,” Anakin said. He pushed down the lump in his throat. “We’ll find her. Come on, let’s search outside again.” He made for the door. But Obi-Wan stopped him with a hand on his shoulder.

“I don’t think we should search outside,” he said. “We have no idea where to start. This compound is several kilometers square, at least. I… don’t think we’ll find her. I’ll put out a notice for a missing droid on the Holonet. I’ll let the police droids know too. They’ll be searching the area to try to figure out what those two men were trying to do. They’ll let us know if they find her.”

Anakin stood staring at the door. The police droids wouldn’t find Emnine, and neither would a citizen. Police droids wouldn’t care. They’d say whatever Obi-Wan wanted to hear, then go do exactly what they’d been planning on doing. And if a citizen found her, they’d steal her for themselves, or wipe her and sell her, or break her down to sell as parts. Chances were that had already happened, actually. Anakin’s vision blurred with tears, and he bit down on his lower lip.

“Come on, let’s go home,” Obi-Wan said. His tone was gentle, but it wasn’t a question.

“Okay,” Anakin said, barely above a whisper. When he blinked, the tears dropped from his eyes and made two little wet spots like raindrops on the floor at his feet. He kept his head down as he walked to Obi-Wan’s speeder, as though that would somehow prevent Obi-Wan from seeing.

They rode back over the city blocks in silence, the lights just starting to twinkle beneath them as night fell.

_I turned her tracker off,_ Anakin thought, struggling not to sob. _It’s my fault._ He’d left her somewhere, alone and scared. He’d done exactly what he promised her he’d never do. _I didn’t mean to, Emnine,_ he thought, and for once it was true. _I never meant to leave you._ He wished more than anything that he’d told her he loved her, just once. That he’d told her what a good droid she was, what a good friend. It was easier for him to show people things like that than it was to say them. Easier to fix things for them and help them out and follow them around without asking. But he could have at least told her once, and he hadn’t even done that. 

“I’m sorry we couldn’t find her,” Obi-Wan said.

Anakin started at the sound of his voice. He still didn’t look at him.

“I know she meant a lot to you.”

_He knew,_ Anakin thought. If Obi-Wan knew, then Emnine must have known too. The thought took away some of the guilt, but it also brought a fresh wave of tears. “She did,” he said with a noisy gasp. “It’s just… I wish I hadn’t lost her now. It was just starting to get good.”

“Loss never comes at an easy time,” Obi-Wan said, staring out over the city. “There is no easy time. But those we lose often seem to go at the time we need them most.” He fell silent for a moment. Then he turned to look at Anakin.

Somehow, that look gave Anakin the strength to stop crying.

“I’ll get you another astrodroid, when you’re ready for one,” Obi-Wan said. “Having her seemed to do you good.”

“We did each other good,” Anakin said, nodding. He sniffed and wiped his eyes. “We fixed each other, I think. Or, made each other closer to being fixed. I’m still a little broken, I think. But I’m better than I was.”

“Everyone is a little broken,” Obi-Wan said. “Whatever makes you feel closer to being fixed, let it in. Cherish it for as long as it lasts.” He looked at Anakin a moment longer, like he wanted to say something more. Then he seemed to shake himself out of it. “I really do sound like a Master now, don’t I?” he said, in the way someone might say they were starting to look like their father.

Anakin managed a smile. “Yeah,” he said. “You do.”

When they reached the Temple, Obi-Wan took Anakin to the medical ward. The med droid who examined him ran a few scans, gave him a shot for the pain, and told him to go home. Obi-Wan took him to his own rooms instead of to the Padawans’ dorms, and he insisted that he go to bed as soon as they were there, even though it was barely sundown. Anakin obeyed, and drifted off surprisingly fast. He woke up several hours later, feeling quite a bit better than he had before. Some of the Masters had told him before that he Force healed his injuries instinctively while he was sleeping. But Force healing couldn’t fix the ache in his heart from losing Emnine. That wound was still just as fresh as it had been in the speeder. He’d have to go back to his room and see her port, he knew. He was glad he didn’t have to see that yet. He was also glad Obi-Wan wouldn’t be there when he did see it, but at the same time, he almost wished he could go with him. He didn’t want to leave Obi-Wan, even more than before. Whatever he hadn’t said out loud when they were in the speeder, Anakin had felt a change in him. He felt somehow closer now, more present.

_Emnine did that,_ he thought, curled up in Obi-Wan’s bed with the covers wrapped around him. He didn’t know how, but somehow, she did. The realization made him feel warmer inside, despite the sadness that came with it. He closed his eyes again, feeling Obi-Wan’s presence from the other room. Then he opened his eyes and sat up with a start as something _clunked_ violently from outside.

“Master? What was that?” he asked. Another loud crash sounded as he swung his legs over the edge of the bed.

“Anakin, you’ll want to see this,” Obi-Wan called from the other room.

Anakin stood at the door to the sitting room and froze in place, his eyes wide and his mouth hanging open.

“Look who came home,” Obi-Wan said with a disbelieving laugh.

Emnine stood behind him, hugging the backs of his legs and looking embarrassed. When she saw Anakin, her lights lit up at once and she let out an overjoyed _wowwww!_ and rolled toward him.

“Emnine?” Anakin said, tears springing into his eyes. He ran across the room, ignoring Obi-Wan’s protest to not move so fast, and threw his arms around Emnine’s dome, his face smooshed against the metal. “I thought you were gone forever,” he said. When he moved his face, his tears smeared across her dome and his cheeks both. “How did you…?”

Obi-Wan shook his head, still standing by the door with one hand on his hip. “She must have signaled me and then run home,” he said.

Anakin sniffed, smiling, and wiped his face on his sleeve. “Not sure why we didn’t think of that,” he said. “That sounds exactly like something she would do.”

Emnine just warbled and rocked on her treads, enjoying the attention.

Anakin nestled his face against her dome again and hugged her tighter still. _I love you, so much,_ he thought, gripping her tight, looking up at Obi-Wan. He’d tell them both, soon.

The next time Obi-Wan met with Master Yoda, it wasn’t to discuss something Anakin had done wrong, for once. It was a week after the power outage. The police droids had cleared up the situation with the two Gran – they’d rigged the generator to a computer they’d built and were going to use it to hack into a Banking Clan database. Apparently, their partners had caused the crisis at the spaceport that had demanded the district control center's attention too. It sounded like it had been a very elaborate scheme. But all it had taken was two Jedi to bring it crashing down. Obi-Wan got embarrassed whenever anyone talked about it, but Anakin wore it proudly. Yoda spoke to both of them first, while Emnine stood in the room beside them, quiet as always.

“And now, Padawan Skywalker,” Yoda said, his hands on his cane. “Tell me about R2-M9." He cocked his head, his eyes dark and curious. "Some adventures you have had together, yes?”

Anakin nodded. “She saved my life, sir,” he said. “And I cured one of her glitches – most of the way, anyway. We’re good for each other. Oh, and she can sing.” He glanced sideways at Obi-Wan, grinning.

Obi-Wan rolled his eyes. “Trust me, it’s not as good as it sounds,” he said.

Yoda nodded his head approvingly. A moment later, he dismissed Anakin and Emnine so he could speak to Obi-Wan alone. 

“Your plan worked a charm, as always, Master,” Anakin heard Obi-Wan say, listening at the door from the hall. “He and R2-M9 have a bond like I’ve never seen between a human and a droid.”

“Hmm, yes. Learning to channel his feelings more constructively, young Skywalker is?”

“I… I think he is, yes,” Obi-Wan said. “He's still reckless, and overconfident, and... well, just about as much as I can handle." His voice didn't sound distressed this time, Anakin thought. It sounded... amused. Almost proud. "But he’s doing well," he finished. "Better than I’ve seen him in a long time.”

“And you?”

There was a short silence from the other side of the door. At last, Obi-Wan said, “I’m well too.” It was just three words, but Anakin knew him well enough to tell he meant it.

He straightened up and turned to Emnine, beaming. “You hear that, girl?” he said. “We’re gonna be okay.” He patted her dome. “You and me both.”

Emnine nodded.


End file.
